Paper Cranes
by Spontaneite
Summary: Two years passed before Hikaru admitted, reluctantly, that possession by a spirit seemed to have long-lasting side effects which probably wouldn't go away on their own. [In-progress, cross-posted on ao3 and tumblr; 22 chapters available]
1. Chapter 1

Paper Cranes

Chapter 1

It took two years for things to truly begin to change, and it began with his holiday.

Hikaru booked off the week of May 5th two months in advance, making certain that the Institute would schedule nothing official for him in any way during those seven days. This meant that when people bugged him to attend the Go Institute festival occurring at the start of the month, he could shut them down as thoroughly as he wanted. Over the weeks leading up to his time off, Hikaru had to do this frequently and insistently, as people refused to believe that he would miss any sort of easily accessible Go event. This was to be expected, considering normally you couldn't keep Hikaru away from Go events any more than you could bully a river into flowing the wrong way.

Of the many people Hikaru had to defend his time off from, Waya was the first. He began the whole fuss at lunch approximately one month before the festival, asking "are you teaching at the festival? I heard Touya is. But he's, you know, five dans higher than you, so." The boy smirked at him, apparently ignoring the fact that he was the same official rank as Hikaru and therefore just as many dan grades inferior to Touya.

"Not for long," Hikaru vowed fiercely, adding "but nah, I'm not teaching."

"So what, you're just going to wander around criticising other people's games again?" The boy crossed his arms, looking half amused and half annoyed. Hikaru was good at provoking that expression.

He grinned at the words, because that _was_ pretty much his standard operating procedure at Go events where they'd failed to enlist him as a teacher. He'd invite himself to the games between amateurs and bully them into noticing the flaws in their hands, with the players often torn between getting very offended and getting very appreciative. Half of them tended to leave the event calling him 'Shindou-sensei', and the other half bitched at him to stop interrupting their games, sometimes very loudly. He'd even accidentally got one guy thrown out of the event once, by annoying him into making too large of a disturbance.

"I would totally do exactly that," He agreed, preparing himself to drop the bombshell. " _if_ I were actually going to the festival. Which I'm not." He sat back and waited for the inevitable reaction.

Waya stared at him for a moment uncomprehendingly. As expected, he seemed entirely unable to register the possibility at all. "Don't be stupid, of course you're going to the festival."

"Nah." Hikaru refuted.

"You go to every damn festival in Tokyo, no matter how stupid or insignificant. Of course you're going." He sounded very certain.

"Noope."

"Shindou, don't you lie about something so dumb, there's no way you're not going!"

"I'm totally not."

He pretty much spent the entire lunch break reciting variants of 'no', 'nope', and 'hell no', chasing Waya away so that he could go back to the match the scheduling guys had managed to cram in around his holiday time. The whole thing had amused him so much that he spent the entire second half of the game grinning maniacally, tapping his fan against the goke rapidly. His opponent seemed more than slightly disturbed by it and didn't play nearly as well as he had before, which was disappointing, but oh well.

* * *

Waya sure as hell didn't stop bugging him, which meant that word spread, which meant that Touya heard, and of course his rival flatly refused to believe that he would miss any Go event. This disbelief was compounded by the fact that the Young Lions tournament was approaching, and _apparently_ , Hikaru would never dream of missing it.

As such, Touya remained very confident in his assessment that Hikaru was simply lying, and made certain to say so whenever they saw each other, which these days was reasonably often. His surety on the matter lasted approximately four days, dying a swift death after Hikaru's name failed to appear on the match listings for the Young Lions tournament. After this, the nanadan became belligerent and suspicious and started demanding his reasoning and _did not stop._

"What could you possibly be doing? I checked with the Association, you have the whole week booked off!" They were, as they often were, in his father's Go salon. This time, however, they'd not even started playing before they started arguing. The other patrons watched with interest, aware that this was a break from the usual routine, and perhaps one which wouldn't end with innocent Go stones being flung.

"Well, you see, sometimes people go on _holiday_ , Touya." Hikaru explained slowly and kindly. "And, you see, pretty much everyone who works is allowed time off for holiday. Especially in Golden Week. That's kind of the point of Golden Week, actually."

"What could you possibly want a holiday for?" Touya demanded, sounding honestly baffled and indignant at once. Hikaru would call him a Go-obsessed freak for not understanding why anyone would want a holiday, but that would be _slightly_ hypocritical of him. Just a little.

"I'm going on an epic journey." Hikaru replied instantly.

"To _where?_ "

"Wherever the wind takes me." He proclaimed, enjoying the sight of his rival getting steadily more and more riled up.

" _Shindou!_ Just tell me why you're taking holiday time!"

"I have to find myself." He answered, solemnly.

Flatly, his rival said "that doesn't even make sense."

"I'm going on a beautiful journey of self-discovery." Hikaru declared. "It will change me. I will come back an enlightened man, in touch with my innermost self and the forces of nature."

Touya looked enraged. It was beautiful. "You are doing no such thing," he accused. "You're going off to do something ridiculous and you're being reticent because you _know_ it's idiotic. That's it, isn't it?"

"Touya," Hikaru said, slowly. "I didn't know you hated enlightenment so much, and that's very sad. But you shouldn't let your hatred hold other people back from attaining inner peace."

An incoherent snarl emerged from Touya instead of words. It was a very satisfying sound.

* * *

Hikaru was very good at annoying people. He was also quite good at bullshitting. These skills combined nicely to deflect all attempts to get him to attend the festival or to question him on his holiday. Hikaru stuck firmly to his claim that he was going on a week-long journey to 'find himself', interspersed with occasional commentary about cosmic forces and the bounty of nature, as well as the occasional proverb about self-knowledge.

Most people were very easy to deflect, on account of the aforementioned skill Hikaru had at being annoying. Some were a bit savvier. Ogata asked about his holiday time, once. Upon being promptly greeted with the now well-practiced enlightenment explanation, the title-holder rolled his eyes and didn't ask again. His mother asked, and being well used to his bullshit, nagged him until he admitted that he was going to a couple of places, Kyoto included, and was staying with Yashiro in Osaka. This was, of course, mostly true – he was staying with Yashiro for a day, but that was pretty much a decoy.

Akari, also being very used to Hikaru's bullshit, went straight to his mother and found out about his travel plans, and would only be sworn into silence in return for the admission that he was planning on spending basically the whole week in Kyoto. When questioned about his plans for the city, Hikaru promptly went straight back to the enlightenment spiel, adding for flavour that he planned on visiting many shrines, which was actually true.

Being the she-devil that she was, Akari demanded daily assurances that he was alive, as well as photographic evidence that he was visiting at least three different shrines. As she could inform his friends about his destination, and therefore set the combined might of the Kansai branch upon him, he reluctantly agreed to her terms and shooed her out of the house.

As the days leading up to his trip went on, the people who actually knew Hikaru discovered precisely how stubborn he could be, being regaled repeatedly with the reasoning behind his decision to seek enlightenment. He became pretty damn good at it, to be honest, and even discreetly visited a library to leaf through a few books for verbal ammunition. Enough so that he could keep an entirely straight face while he bullshitted and appear very resolute while he did it.

"I've realised lately that I don't know how to live in the present." Hikaru said solemnly to the latest person to ask him about the festival, a new first dan who hadn't come through Insei. She was pretty good for some random former-outsider, and nice too, but probably too gullible to survive interacting with him for long. "I can never just enjoy the moment, you know? And there's some other stuff as well…even if a week isn't enough time to reach enlightenment, I can still get some advice on how to start trying."

"O-oh," The shodan, who was named Yamada Suzume, said. She looked a bit confused. "That's…nice? I'm happy for you."

"Shindou, you are so full of shit." Waya informed him, having arrived with Isumi a minute before. He turned to Yamada and told her "don't listen to this guy, everything he says is a lie."

Hikaru frowned at his friend. "Waya, I don't understand why you're being so weird about this! What's so bad about me trying to improve myself?" He managed to sound a little indignant and hurt. All the bullshitting was good for his acting skills.

Yamada looked between them, also frowning a little. "Waya-san," She said, hesitantly. "It's not very nice to belittle people who are trying to better themselves. It's not my place to say, but…maybe you should be more supportive of your friend."

Hikaru's expression became somewhat fixed as he tried desperately not to laugh.

"Oh my god." Waya said, staring accusingly at Hikaru. "This is unbelievable."

Yamada looked like she was going to comment, but Isumi stopped her, smiling very kindly. "Yamada-san," He said, and the girl pinked a bit. Maybe she had a crush on Isumi; such was not an uncommon occurrence among young Go-enthusiast ladies. "I assure you, Shindou-kun enjoys tricking people and is not telling the truth in the least. Even so, it is very kind of you to say such things. If you would leave us with Shindou-kun for a few minutes?" The young man was exceedingly polite, easily charming the poor gullible girl out of the conversation and over to a nearby colleague, where he swiftly arranged a game between the two, and left them to it.

"Isumi, that was obscene." Waya said to their friend, and then to Hikaru "and you, _you_ are _way_ worse."

"It's very sad that you're still not over this. I'm starting to think you're worried I'll get too enlightened and leave for a monastery." Hikaru replied, considerably less straight faced than he'd been before.

Isumi, who was encountering this for the first time, raised an eyebrow and glanced at Waya questioningly. The brown-haired boy looked back and nodded. "Yeah, I told you."

Hikaru had recently realised that many of his friends were as stubborn and belligerent as he was. He wasn't entirely certain how that had come to pass, but was starting to believe that to get good at Go one had to be stubborn and occasionally belligerent about it. Waya demonstrated this stubborn belligerence, by saying, with relish "Isumi said this might be a Hokuto cup thing! That you were so humiliated by the memory of your defeat that you couldn't stand to be here on its anniversary!"

"Waya, that is _not_ what I said." Isumi sighed as Hikaru stilled a little. He did _not_ enjoy the memory of that loss, occurring as it had on the anniversary of losing Sai. His expression soured.

"It's totally true though, isn't it?" Waya asked, unperturbed. "That's why you're not doing it this year."

"It totally isn't." Hikaru disagreed, feeling a little thrown-off.

Isumi and his unwholesomely sharp eyes seemed intent. "Actually, I thought what happened _two_ years ago might be more relevant." He said, and Hikaru…tried not to react, and simply fixed his expression in place. It felt quite artificial. "That was when you retreated from Go for two months, if I recall."

Hikaru, after a moment, rallied admirably and declared " _exactly right!_ That's what I've been talking about! If I can't take my mind off my past mistakes, then how can I appreciate the present? I need to spend time in contemplation to come to terms with who I am, or I will never be at peace."

"You wouldn't know the meaning of peace if it came up to you and slapped you in the face with a live fish." Waya said. "So if it's peace you're looking for, you might as well give up, cancel your holiday, and come to the festival. You're doomed to failure."

"I suppose none of us can truly understand what peace is," Hikaru mused, deliberately ignoring the bulk of his friend's statement. "It's something I will have to meditate on at length on my journey to enlightenment."

Waya, easily distracted, was successfully derailed from the line of inquiry. Isumi, however, was watching too sharply – but he didn't say anything, and that was good enough, really.

* * *

Finally, Hikaru's stubbornness paid off and he reached May 1st with only his mother, Akari, and naturally Yashiro aware of any part of his travel itinerary. His time off was Thursday to Thursday, leaving him with a good few days before the anniversary itself. His train was quite early, so it was half-asleep and bleary-eyed that he dragged his nearly empty suitcase to the station and boarded. He promptly fell asleep and didn't wake for the vast majority of the journey, the rest of which he spent playing NetGo under his nick of _5_ , which he was still amazed had been available. The internet version he could access from his phone was absolutely appalling, but it was better than nothing on long journeys.

The login details for _sai_ were used only often enough to ensure the account didn't get deleted, and every time Hikaru logged in was a punch in the gut that he preferred not to dwell on.

The train arrived in Osaka just after midday, and Yashiro was actually waiting for him. He hadn't expected that.

"What, you thought I'd waste time letting you wander around that you could spend playing Go?" The other boy asked when he mentioned his surprise. "You're only here for a day, Shindou."

It was more or less inevitable that a pro Go player would be surrounded by people just as obsessed as they. Hikaru had pretty much resigned the first day of his holiday to the cause as soon as he knew he'd be staying with Yashiro, and honestly he was perfectly okay with that. Yashiro might not be a second dan yet, but he had a tendency for really eclectic plays which were lots of fun to deal with. It was a bit like playing himself, actually. They were both tricky bastards.

"Yeah, yeah. Let's get on with it. You have a goban at home?"

"It's a pretty cheap one, but yeah." Yashiro grimaced. "My parents are still weird about the Go pro thing, so they won't let me buy a better one." He reached for Hikaru's suitcase experimentally, and blinked. "Have you actually _packed_ anything, Shindou?"

"Not a lot. I'm planning on buying some stuff in Kyoto." He answered. "Sucks about your parents, though. Don't they know how much money you're getting already?" It wasn't like theirs was the highest paying job in the world, but it certainly wasn't bad.

"Of course they do. They're making me put it all in a savings account. Dad's even talking about _investing._ "

"Sucks for you," Hikaru said sympathetically. "Now, how are we getting to your place?"

* * *

Hikaru discovered several things that day: Yashiro's goban really was cheap, his parents really were very dubious about Go, and Yashiro really had improved since they last played in person.

On the parents' insistence, they were playing in the sitting room. The goban itself was an exceedingly old table-top folding sort and the stones were all glass, a couple were even chipped. It did the job though, and within minutes of nigiri both he and Yashiro were staring intently at the board. Hikaru got out his fan almost automatically, flexing it absent-mindedly as potential hands streamed through his mind. Neither of them were unduly distracted by their audience – it was just something you got used to pretty early on, even if most audiences did tend to be much more Go-savvy than this one was.

The room was quiet except for the exchange of hands, stones clicking onto the board. It wasn't as satisfying a feeling to play on this sort of board when he was getting used to kaya, but it was alright. They lost their audience at some point near yose, but neither of them cared in the least.

Hikaru won by five-and-a-half moku, feeling thoroughly satisfied. He sat back and stretched, saying "Good match. Want to discuss it?"

"Yeah, definitely." His opponent agreed, and they cleared the board to replay the game from memory.

Their audience returned five minutes into the discussion, at least half of the audience anyway, and that half asked incredulously "Are you replaying the game you _just did?_ "

"Nah, mum, we're just discussing it." Yashiro replied, looking up.

"But you remember the whole thing. All of those moves." She said, sceptically.

"Yeah, but that's nothing special at our level." He confirmed. Hikaru considered saying something, but decided against it. He was too much of a smartass, and didn't want to accidentally piss off Yashiro's mother and make her swear a blood feud against Go or something.

"Hmm." The woman pursed her lips. "Well, dinner will be in an hour. Be sure to have the table cleared before then."

Hikaru turned to Yashiro. "Discuss the game, or speed go?" He asked.

The other boy considered it. "Discuss." He decided. "We can play speed go after dinner."

They nodded, and returned to what they'd been doing.

* * *

The next morning was an early one, though not as bad as the one before. Hikaru bade farewell to his gracious hosts and allowed Yashiro to escort him back to the Osaka station.

"What are you even doing in Kyoto, anyway?" Yashiro asked as he helped him onto the platform.

The response was damn near reflexive by now: "I'm on a journey to get in touch with my inner self, and understand how to be one with the universe."

Yashiro rolled his eyes. "Yeah, sure."

* * *

Kyoto was more or less just as cliché and historical as he'd expected, and also completely packed with tourists. He stared around like a bit of a tourist himself as he navigated towards the cheap hostel he'd booked a room in, reflexively noting the presence of two Go salons along the way. One he noticed while on the bus, the other wasn't far from his accommodation, and he probably wouldn't be visiting either of them. Probably. Maybe. He might do? But only if he had time.

When he booked into the hostel and paid his deposit, he was informed of when he had to be back at night, when breakfast could be obtained, and what was forbidden. Among the forbidden activities was smoking, but incense wasn't mentioned, so score! The bathroom for his section of the hostel was shown to him, and there were two old computers that could be used to access the internet. Hikaru signed his agreement to everything, quite impatient, and was shown to his room and presented with the key.

The room itself was small and very basic. The bedframe was a cheap metal one, and the mattress quite thin. There was a small desk and a window, with a stool beside it. Hikaru removed the stool and set it next to the bed as a bedside table of sorts, then put his suitcase under the bed. He checked himself for wallet and mobile phone, and left the hostel.

Hikaru visited his first shrine on the way to somewhere the maps claimed was a shopping district. It was a very small thing, pretty much just a really old tree with the traditional rope around it and a basic Shinto-Buddhist structure nearby. Hikaru couldn't take any pictures of it on account of not having bought a camera yet, but maybe he would on his way back to the hostel.

After a moment of hesitance, he located the kannushi and did what he came to Kyoto to do, pretty much. Making an uncharacteristic effort to be polite, he said "excuse me?" and the kannushi turned to see him. The clothes were…startling. He'd seen them from behind, of course, and that was bad enough, but…

The shrine keeper looked at him dubiously. Hikaru was fully aware that the bleached bangs and bright clothing did not especially fit in at a shrine, and were found on delinquents more often than respectful do-gooders. The expression on the man's face was, therefore, one he was very familiar with. Hikaru was still a bit distracted by the clothes. It wasn't as if they looked the _same –_ the colours were all wrong, to begin with, and there were several small differences in style – but it was certainly a greater similarity to Sai's apparel than he tended to see in Japanese formal dress.

"Yes, young man?" The kannushi asked politely.

Hikaru considered his words, and decided it would be odd to dive straight in to what he wanted to ask. So instead he said "Can you tell me a little bit about this shrine?"

The man looked somewhat surprised. "I certainly can." He said. "It is good to see a young person like yourself taking an interest. Now, you see this tree here…" For a while, Hikaru listened and half tried to take in the information about the shrine's history and the tree kami it had been built for. It did take around five minutes, but the kannushi did conclude his 'brief summary', and smiled at him. "Was that what you wanted to know?"

"…Yep," Hikaru answered, his considerable experience with bullshit making him sound actually sincere. He paused before asking what he'd actually come there for. "I was also wondering, though…what can you tell me about spirits?"

"Spirits? Are you referring to the kami?" The kannushi asked, startled.

Hikaru hummed doubtfully. "No, not really. Sort of. A lot of kami started as ancestor spirits, right? So they used to be human?"

The man didn't seem to understand what he was getting at. "I suppose some of them were, yes."

Hikaru went for it. "So, would you say it's possible for humans to become spirits?"

The kannushi stared for a moment, and then sighed. "You are asking about ghosts, aren't you?"

"…Yeah, pretty much." Hikaru admitted.

The shrine keeper looked away, and was silent for several moments. "Young man," He said, at last. "I believe it is possible that humans, even today, leave lingering spirits. But if they do, I know of no way to detect them, or communicate with them, and I have heard no plausible story of any who does."

It was pretty much what Hikaru had expected. "I guessed as much."

The kannushi hesitated. "If you have lost someone, I am truly sorry for you." He said, and the words were unexpectedly painful. Hikaru flinched, and swallowed quickly. "But as far as communicating with their spirits…I can only suggest visiting the grave, or perhaps praying at a household shrine."

"Pretty much what I'd planned." Hikaru sighed. "Well, thanks for your time, anyway."

"You are very welcome." The kannushi said, now looking quite sad.

Hikaru turned and left without looking back, stepping under the torii and back into the town.

* * *

He hadn't been lying; praying at a household shrine was definitely something he had in mind. Or something close to it, anyway. He'd wanted to for a while, but something like that wasn't exactly easy to do at his house. His mother would notice, Akari would notice, and everyone would want to know who he was mourning. It would be a huge pain in the backside.

Here, though…

It took a while to find what he was looking for in full. The cheap incense burner was easy, as were the candles. He smelled a variety of incenses, dubiously, not really sure what he was looking for there. The place he got the burner was kind of small, with little variety in incenses, so he left the incense unbought. He could always come back for some later.

It was in a much larger shop that he found the right incense, as well as the rest of what he was after. The contents of the store were predominantly wooden – carvings, sculptures, even some furniture. There were a lot of items with a distinct Shinto feel to them, and many more clearly Buddhist. A large section of the room was set aside with rows and rows of incense, some elaborate incense burners nearby, and there was even a corner of the room with a number of interesting bowls. He approached them and inspected them, discovering that they all seemed to have batons next to them, and the storekeeper approached him shortly.

"Is there something I can help you with?" The woman asked him, eyes running over the hair with curiosity. Shindou Hikaru was never something people expected, especially not at shrines or in stores like this.

"I was sort of wondering what these were." He replied promptly, picking a bowl up. It was metallic, and very very gold. The gleam of it was intense, though the surface wasn't perfectly even.

The storekeeper held her hands out for the bowl, and he passed it over. She placed it back on the small cushion he'd taken it from, took the baton, and with a practiced motion hit the baton lightly against the side of the bowl.

The sound rang out, clear and resonant. "A bell?" He asked, surprised.

"Of a sort," She agreed. "They are sometimes called 'singing bowls'. Some of them, if you stroke the baton around the edge, make a high ringing sound that can become very loud."

He listened to the sound fade out. "Pretty." He commented. "Not what I'm here for, though."

"What can I do for you, then?" She asked, lips quirking.

He glanced around, back to the wood carvings. He wasn't sure she'd have any, but…oh! "There!" he said, and strode briskly over. There were a number of kamidana there, some impressively large and elaborate.

"The kamidana?" The woman asked, having followed him. "What size were you looking at?"

Hikaru pondered them, musing on the size of his suitcase. "It'll have to be small." He said. "I'll need to get it in my suitcase. One of these, maybe?" He touched one of the second smallest ones – not the miniaturised thing that the littlest was, but still a lot smaller than some kamidana could be. This one was still smaller than a lot of the household ones tended to be, being only about forty centimetres wide, but it would still take up the vast majority of his suitcase. He inspected it, carefully. It wasn't just an imitation, it had the beautiful golden inlay and everything. It was probably hideously expensive. "How much is it?"

She answered, and he winced. It was worth it, though.

"Yeah, I'll have it. I'd like to look at the incense you have as well, though."

"That's great," The storekeeper smiled. "Will you be needing ofuda for the kamidana?"

"…I don't think so. It would need to be pretty specific." He declined, after thinking. Ofuda were, pretty much, protective charms that called to certain gods. He wasn't asking for protection, and he wasn't asking any gods, either.

"Of course. Let me know when you're done."

Hikaru nodded to her, and wandered over to the incense. There was seriously a lot of it. So many different scents – it was outrageous. And he _still_ had no idea of what to buy. There was actually a specific section for ritual incenses, even those suitable for use as funerary incenses. He had a look and sniff at all of them, but still wasn't sure what he was looking for. He might get one of those if he didn't find anything else, though.

He wandered down the display, inspecting the various containers. One actually stood out to him – in the woody section, there was one called _kaya_ , meant to evoke the scent of that particular wood. Hikaru laughed a little, and took a box of the _kaya_ incense, having a sniff. It wasn't as though he went around sniffing gobans, so he wasn't sure how accurate it might be, but the scent was sort of nice and woodsy.

Hikaru turned to go to the cashpoint, _kaya_ in hand, but paused. He glanced at what had caught his eye, and went still. In the section dedicated to flower scents, there was an innocuous row of boxes labelled _fuji._ Wisteria.

He paused, then hesitantly reached out to take a box. He sniffed it, and nearly swayed in place as memory hit him like a tidal wave. It wasn't like it was exact, the smell was a bit too sweet for that, but it was _familiar._ Maybe it did smell like wisteria, and that was the smell he recognised, but he didn't really give a crap about that because it smelled like _Sai_ , and he'd completely forgotten what that was like.

He'd read something once about smell being more strongly connected to memory than any other sense, but he'd never really felt it so keenly before. For a disorientating second, it was almost as if Sai was _there_ , pouncing on him in excitement as he'd often done. Hikaru lowered the incense box from his face and inhaled the smoky, many-scented air of the shop to clear out the whiff of the _fuji_. It took a few deep breaths before he gathered himself, and reached for four more boxes of the incense. He wasn't sure what his mum would think of all the incense burning, but she'd learn to cope.

Somewhat impressed that he'd managed to keep composed through _that_ , Hikaru made his way to where the store keeper lady had been wrapping his kamidana for transport, his hands straining around one tube of _kaya_ and five of _fuji._

"These as well, please." He said, handing them over for her to scan. She nodded, and six beeps later, she read him the somewhat painful total. He was glad his mum didn't micromanage his finances like Yashiro's did. "Thanks." Hikaru told her, putting the handles of the paper bag of incense over his wrist so that he could carry the kamidana's box properly.

The walk back to the hostel was much more annoying than the walk from it, while toting the damn box with him, but that was life.

The receptionist at the hostel gave him an odd look as he walked in, but obligingly gave him his key, the ring of which he hooked around a pinky finger for the remaining distance to his room. He had to put the box down to open the door, but he managed to clatter into the bare accommodation eventually. He put the box and the bag on the desk, and fished the long box with the incense burner out of his back pocket as well. He stared at the lot with consternation, not sure what to do with the stuff now that he had it, and slowly decided that he'd set it all up on the actual anniversary, and not before.

* * *

Hikaru woke with a sore shoulder, graciously bestowed upon him by the lumpy mattress, and set about his Saturday with single-minded determination.

It was a Saturday filled with entirely too much commuting for his liking, but that was how getting around a large city worked, unfortunately. True to his pact with Akari, he purchased a cheap disposable camera early on and meticulously photographed all of his destinations.

These destinations were, without fail, shrines. All of the shrines. All of them. Hikaru systematically went through every shrine he could find listed in Kyoto, though naturally he wouldn't be able to do them all in one day. Maybe not even the whole week. In every case, he took photographs, and harassed the kannushi about spirits. In some cases, the kannushi were too busy, so he spoke to the miko while he waited for an opportunity to interrogate the priests. In other cases, the kannushi were too busy to be waited for, so that was a colossal waste of time.

None of them seemed to have any better insight into ghosts and spirits than the first had, so it wasn't looking good. Maybe he really would have to start trying for exorcists and 'spiritual masters' once he ran out of shrines.

Late in the afternoon, armed with a full camera worth of photographs and no useful knowledge whatsoever, Hikaru got some ramen from a nearby stall and headed back to the hostel to play NetGo on its computers. He ran into Waya online, gleefully immersed himself into a proper game that he naturally won, and then completely ignored the post-game bitching the other pro sent at him for 'disappearing like that' in what was meant to be the post-game discussion.

It was a pretty good evening, even if the day hadn't really been all that fruitful.

* * *

Sunday's mission was twofold: one, go on all the touristy tours of the Imperial Palace he could manage, and two, investigate the shrines on the Palace grounds if that was possible. Hikaru pondered his agenda shortly before 10am, having hastily made his way to the hostel cafeteria just before its breakfast window closed. He successfully absconded to a table with a pastry, some toast, and a mini-packet of butter, setting about his meal with relish. It might not have been anything fancy or even all that good, but it was _food._

He finished in good time and set off to buy a new camera before heading for the Palace. Having done a lot of walking and commuting the previous day, Hikaru felt somewhat more familiar with the city, and arrived at the Imperial Palace with very little fuss. However, upon arriving there he discovered that there weren't actually any tours on Sundays, so he was very much out of luck for both of the day's missions.

Hikaru stared at the tour schedule and booking sign with disgust, half annoyed at his poor planning and half annoyed at the schedule itself. Feeling thoroughly put-out, he made his way to a nearby tourist memorabilia type place and bought some information books on the Palace, which he sat down with on a bench to read while he sulked.

The material therein was actually somewhat surprising. Turns out, the Imperial Palace that you could tour in Kyoto wasn't actually what had been used in the Heian era – that one had been abandoned, and had burnt down in the 1200s. It was unexpectedly jarring. Hikaru had always sort of assumed that he would be able to come to Kyoto and walk on the same ground that Sai had, a very long time ago. Maybe even see the same buildings. But…apparently not.

What a waste.

Day's plans ruined, Hikaru toured a couple more shrines throughout the city and then located a reasonably large library, where he located books on the Heian era and distractedly leafed through them for several hours. The boring political stuff didn't stick with him at all, but some other stuff did. He somehow hadn't expected to see the name 'Fujiwara' in the history books, but it was in basically all of them. The Fujiwara clan, it seemed, had been anything from hugely powerful to outright ruling Japan throughout most of the Heian era. He wasn't sure whether Sai had been the same sort of Fujiwara as that, but considering he'd had access to the emperor's court in that era…it seemed likely.

He tried to look through some Fujiwara family trees but they were pretty useless, he couldn't make heads or tails of them. If Sai had been a Fujiwara, either his name hadn't been recorded, or it wasn't easy to find. Considering he'd been disgraced, and killed himself so young…well, maybe there weren't any records left to say that he'd ever existed. Damned depressing, that Hikaru might be the only person who knew that Fujiwara no Sai had once lived and breathed.

The whole thing had depressed him enough that, screw everything, Hikaru went back to the area of the city he was staying in and made a beeline for the Go salon he'd noticed when he arrived.

It was mid-afternoon by then, and most small Go salons weren't always populated at that time – it often tended to be more of an evening thing. It was a Sunday, though, so there was a surprising number of people in the place, despite how smoky and tiny it was. He looked around curiously as he walked in, eyeing the patrons as they eyed him. The admittance guy, who'd apparently been watching a game in the corner, came over to peer at him. He was old and pretty fat.

"You here to play, kid?" He asked, clearly wanting to go back to watching the game. "It's 400 yen for children."

Hikaru was sorely tempted to advertise himself as the pro he was, because this guy at least clearly didn't recognise him, but he was sort of looking forward to shocking some old guys with curb-stomp matches, so… "Yep." He nodded, and handed over the yen.

"All good." The man muttered, quickly counting the money and putting it away in a nearby box. "What level are you? Do you know?"

Hikaru paused for a moment, though _to hell with it,_ and said "Nidan."

"Yeah, right. I'll put down twenty kyu, alright? And don't cry to me if you get beat."

And yeah, okay, Hikaru could feel himself cheering up more by the second. This was going to be hilarious. "Sure, whatever you want." He agreed, and walked into the salon. "Anyone not playing?"

One of the spectators of a game in the corner snorted at him, amused. He was actually reasonably young for this sort of place, only thirty or so. "If you're twenty kyu, I might be a bit strong for you." He said.

Hikaru grinned, and said "Bring it."

The poor sucker tried to give him a handicap, but Hikaru wasn't quite cruel enough to allow that. He insisted on nigiri with every ounce of stubborn brat he had in him, and eventually managed it, his opponent sighing. Hikaru got white, which was a small mercy for the other guy, and set his goke next to the cheap folding goban. The bow and " _onegaishimasu_ " were basically instinct by this point, but the formality did seem to surprise the guy a little as he bowed back.

Hikaru watched the guy more than the board, because it was funny as hell to watch as he steadily realised how monumentally outclassed he was. It was this look of confusion, to begin with, then consternation, and a few flavours of disbelief mixed in, and then finally the guy looked at him with a suspicious grimace. Hikaru grinned at him impudently, and the game went on.

The guys in the corner finished their game and came to watch. The younger of the two, a forty-something guy with premature balding, whistled as he saw the board. "You're white, kid?"

"Yep." Hikaru nodded, drawing out the word with satisfaction. It was much more amusing to dominate games in person than on NetGo, because the reactions could get _excellent._

"You've already lost, Yamakawa." The older of their spectators observed. "Might as well resign now before it gets embarrassing."

Hikaru's opponent scowled. "He's just a kid!" He protested.

"He's a pro, you idiot." The old guy retorted. "Honestly, am I the only one who reads the magazine in this damned place?"

Several sets of very startled eyes went to Hikaru. He grinned at the lot of them, noticing that the five other guys in the room had heard and were _also_ looking.

"…What?" His opponent, Yamakawa, uttered weakly.

"I remember seeing his Shin Shodan picture a couple years back." The old guy explained. "The hair's pretty distinctive. Don't remember your name, though." He turned to Hikaru on the last comment.

"Shindou Hikaru, second dan." Hikaru introduced himself, enjoying the muffled curses going around. "I'm on holiday, but eh. You want to discuss the game?" he asked his poor, hapless opponent.

"I…I'll leave it, thank you." Yamakawa said, looking somewhat shell-shocked.

Hikaru shrugged. "Suit yourself." He looked around. "Anyone want some shidou-go? I've got a couple of hours to kill."

In fact, everyone wanted shidou-go, and so his afternoon concluded much more pleasantly than it had begun.

Hikaru left the Go salon in the late afternoon, and procured a burger from a nearby fast food place to have for dinner. The hostel did breakfast, but you only got dinner there if you cooked it yourself. Hikaru, being a fifteen year old with a doting mother, did not have cooking experience, and had no wish to get any at this point in time.

He commandeered the hostel computer for another evening foray into NetGo, this time encountering Yashiro's nick on there, and had another very enjoyable match that lasted pretty late. Trying very hard not to think about the impending day, Hikaru brushed his teeth, sent his obligatory 'still alive' text to Akari, and made every effort to fall asleep quickly.

He did not succeed.

* * *

Hikaru woke up early, feeling barely rested.

He'd done a pretty good job, these last two years, of bull-headedly focusing on things, anything he could, to distract himself. Go really was a miracle in that regard – if he spent all his time playing, and really immersed himself in the games, it almost felt normal. But he couldn't do that today.

Today was May 5th.

The desk by the window was too low for traditional kamidana placement. They were supposed to be above eye level, if possible, but it couldn't be helped. Hikaru hardly thought Sai would have minded, anyway.

…Sai.

Hikaru blinked rapidly as he unpacked the kamidana from its box, picking away the packing material meant to pad it during transit. He set it far back on the desk, arranged a couple of candles around it, and put the incense burner to the side, too. In place of the shintai, the object containing or representing the kami to be venerated, he opened the paper fan he carried with him everywhere and carefully balanced it there. It was the best physical representation he could manage.

He placed the tube of _fuji_ near the burner, but didn't place a stick or light it. He lit the candles, using a lighter he'd pilfered from home, but suspected the scent of the incense might mess him up magnificently and he didn't want that just yet.

With all of the objects positioned, Hikaru sat down on the floor in front of the desk in seiza, which was now so familiar to him.

"So." He said aloud, in an attempt to clear his head a little. He wasn't sure it worked.

He had come to Kyoto this week for a reason. To remember and respect Sai, of course, but not only that. He had come to Kyoto, on the anniversary of Sai's disappearance, because he was starting to suspect that something was wrong with him.

Hikaru knew that grief was normal when you lost someone close to you, and Sai had certainly qualified. Even if he'd been a brat about it, there wasn't any way to avoid becoming seriously attached when you spent two years in the constant presence of someone as kind and genuine as Sai. It only made sense that he felt the absence, that he grieved. And even without the grief, it wasn't easy to adapt to being alone when you'd literally never been apart from someone for that long.

Those first two months had been an absolute nightmare. He'd spent every moment with Sai's absence screaming at him. When he looked around, there wasn't a white-robed figure there, not anywhere. Many times, he reflexively commented on things aloud, even addressed comments to the ghost, and there was no reply. There was nothing. Even worse was when he _thought_ at Sai, as he'd been doing for years – the spirit was possessing him, after all, and had always been able to hear targeted thoughts. Hikaru shuddered, remembering intensely the sensation of reaching out with his thoughts for someone who _wasn't there._

It had been just…completely awful. Everything felt wrong. He'd been so horribly guilty for Sai's absence, as well, convinced it was his own selfishness that had exiled the spirit. Every waking minute was evidence, again and again and again, that _Sai wasn't there_ , and he just hadn't been able to cope at all.

Hikaru was _very_ thankful to Isumi to helping him snap out of that mess. Once he'd found that vestige of Sai's presence in his own Go, once he'd thrown himself into games again…it had been better.

He had, over months and months of practice, made an art of avoiding certain thoughts and emotions. Intense immersion in passing moments, in games, in anything he could find were invaluable in helping him cope. Especially early on, when he still had the habit of speaking to Sai or reaching out with thoughts.

It was easier now that those habits had faded, and he didn't expect to see Sai whenever he glanced to the side, and had no impulse to speak to someone who wasn't there.

But Hikaru still _felt_ it, dammit. It wasn't like it only hurt whenever his thoughts wandered to Sai, or he was reminded of Sai, or anything like that. The emotional pain was pretty much constant, and the best he could do was try to distract himself from it. He woke up every day with something _missing_ , he passed every minute of every hour of those days trying not to let himself dwell on the constant aching absence of Sai. He could feel it, always, no matter what he did. It was impossible to forget that _Sai wasn't there,_ and the only reason he'd managed to cope so well was his single-minded determination to _not think about it._

Sai was the only person Hikaru had really lost, so it wasn't like he was an expert in grief and mourning. But he was pretty sure that, two years later, it should be better than it was. It should hurt when he thought of Sai, sure, but this incessant pain? It wasn't normal. It couldn't be. His method of coping had pretty much ensured he'd not really thought about it before, but…it was time to. Because it wasn't getting better on its own.

Hikaru breathed deeply, well aware that he was trembling but not especially capable of stopping it. Sai had been a ghost, a spirit. He had _possessed_ Hikaru. Maybe not in the conventional sense – it wasn't as though he'd destroyed Hikaru's mind or controlled his actions or anything, but Sai had been connected to the world through his occupancy of Hikaru's soul. It was a pretty old memory, but he _did_ remember passing out when it happened, and he remembered vomiting at first when the sensation of Sai's emotion overwhelmed him, and it had felt so _weird_ in the beginning. That hadn't lasted, though. Eventually, Sai's presence with him had felt natural. Familiar and comforting, even. It had been normal to have that presence at the edge of his mind, which he could reach out to with a thought.

It made an uncomfortable amount of sense that, having adapted to the presence of Sai in his soul, Hikaru was now…missing something, somehow. Was there such a thing as spiritual scarring? Spiritual phantom 'limb' pain? What if Hikaru's own spirit had changed so much to adapt to Sai's that it now couldn't function properly without him? Had he become dependent on Sai to the point where it was impossible to adapt?

It wasn't easy to think about Sai at all, it was _really difficult_ to sit there in seiza and actually dwell on the yawning pit of emptiness in his mind where, even now, he expected there to be something. But he kind of had to, because it was time to acknowledge that he might not actually be _capable_ of accepting or moving on from Sai, whether it be mentally or spiritually or whatever. And of course, since he couldn't move on, he was still stuck solidly in grief so fresh he might as well have lost Sai a day ago, rather than two whole years. He didn't even _want_ to move on from Sai, because that screaming emptiness in his head insisted that Sai _should be there._

He needed to stop grieving for Sai but couldn't, and because he couldn't stop grieving he didn't want to stop grieving in the first place, and so he was always grieving and always having to cope by distracting himself and it was just a huge, huge mess.

Frankly, Hikaru considered himself exceptionally awesome for managing so well that his friends and family had barely seen any of his issues, though he _knew_ Akari had noticed things, probably Touya and Isumi as well.

So, he was here in Kyoto. Partly to grieve properly for Sai, and pay him respect, because he couldn't afford to do that back home where people might notice. And also, to see if he could find someone who might know something about spirits, and spiritual injuries. Kyoto, where Sai had lived and died, seemed a good place to do both things.

The shrines were a good place to start, so he'd exhaust those first. If he had time left in Kyoto he'd look for exorcists and spiritual specialists, and if he still found nothing he'd start a tour of shrines and exorcists back home in Tokyo. If that still didn't work, he could tour the internet and try phoning more faraway people. The point was, there was something he could do, even if it seemed futile and hopeless at best.

There were a number of things that might help. Maybe it was possible to heal whatever wound Sai had left him with when he'd disappeared. Maybe it was possible to fill the absence with some other sort of power or energy.

But the solution Hikaru wanted, more than anything, was to find some way to communicate with spirits, with Kami, with _anyone_ , and find some way to get Sai back to him.

Hikaru stood, briefly, and lit a stick of incense. The smell only hit him once he'd sat down again, and he shuddered in the face of it, it was _so familiar_. He could almost believe Sai was beside him, robes and hair flicking about whatever perfume it was that made him smell like wisteria incense.

 _I'll do it, Sai._ Hikaru thought, intentionally reaching out into that horrible, empty void where his friend should be. He shook in place, fists clenching. _I'll find you. Somehow, I'll find you._

* * *

 _end chapter._

 **Story Notes (07/07/17):** Welcome to Paper Cranes. This story has been on ao3 for nearly a year now, and I've finally got around to posting the first chapter here. Currently, there are 14 chapters on ao3, and 15 on tumblr. I've just today finished chapter 16 so that will be going up on tumblr sometime this evening.

The current word count of 16 chapters is a bit over 135k, and the story is getting to maybe about half-way done. Chapters will be added here when they've been thoroughly edited and revised, which may take time. If you don't want to wait, head to my ao3 (Spontaneite) or tumblr (tenspontaneite). Chapters on tumblr are the first, rough editions, and chapters on ao3 have been given a fairly thorough editing. If you read on ao3, please beware: replies to all comments are public there, so the comments section contains a lot of spoilers.

To anyone coming here from ao3 or tumblr - thank you for showering Paper Cranes with love. You are all wonderful.

To new readers: I welcome comments, questions, and concrit. Lovely to have you.

 **Chapter Notes:**

 _On Heian perfumes_ : nobles in the Heian era were quite fond of scents and perfumes, and used them extensively. Considering the connection to his clan's name, I think it perfectly possible that Sai would have used a scent derived from wisteria on his robes. While the exact scent wouldn't have survived a thousand years, the incense is superficially similar.

 _On olfaction_ : The sense of smell is very, very poignantly connected to memory. This is probably an adaptive trait, given it allows us to readily remember if smells herald something good (like food) or something dangerous (fire, poison, etc).

 _On Go_ : In this fanfiction, Touya Akira is a seventh-dan (nanadan). This has real-world basis. Not long after this point in the timeline in the real world, there was a change in how dan grade promotions were earned in the professional Go world. Namely, professionals who managed to enter certain prestigious title leagues like Honinbou would receive an automatic promotion to nanadan. If they managed to get through the league to challenge the title-holder, that's an automatic promotion to eighth-dan. While Touya entered the Honinbou league a little too early for him to get this promotion if it were the real world, I'm backtracking this policy change for the sake of convenience in the fanfiction.


	2. Chapter 2

Paper Cranes

Chapter 2

Hikaru had expected that he would lose track of time. Had planned for it, even, leaving several very annoying alarms on his phone to remind him to eat, and one for later in the day to reassure Akari that he was still breathing.

The first one went off at 12pm, with a high and exceptionally startling ringing that became louder by the second. Hikaru, who had been in something of a laconic stupor since quite early in the morning, jumped half-way out of his skin at the sudden noise, scrambling out of seiza in basically the most undignified way possible; he'd been sitting there for hours, and as soon as he tried to get up the lack of blood-flow in his legs made itself very plain. Hikaru promptly faceplanted into the side of the cheap bed, hitting his collarbone painfully on the frame as the stringent wail of the alarm continued.

Cursing, Hikaru reached for the stool-turned-table at the bedside and removed his phone from it, glaring at the lit-up screen of the cheerfully ringing device. The name of the alarm, which he had set on Saturday, read ' _eat something, you moron'_. He knew himself too well.

The silence in the room sort of sounded like ringing even after he turned off the alarm. It wasn't actually silence – in this hostel, the walls were all basically as thin as screen doors, and it was not at all difficult to hear residents and staff going about their business in nearby rooms. The distinct sound of hoovering echoed from at least two hallways down.

"Shit." Hikaru muttered, realising he'd missed breakfast by a margin of several hours, and probably wouldn't even have had lunch if not for the alarm. He stared around the room for a moment, noting that the incense had burned out at some point, though he wasn't sure when. He'd been pretty out of it. With practiced skill, he carefully did not think about _anything_ , putting everything he could out of his mind as he mechanically went about gathering his clothing. Seriously, he'd been in pyjamas all damn morning.

He went to the communal bathroom to freshen up, brushing his teeth and grimacing at his expression in the mirror. He continued not to think of anything of substance, allowing only asinine and pointless trains of thought into his head. Things like _Waya would probably love to mention how good I am at not thinking of things_ and _I look like I didn't even sleep_ and _fuck, I'm hungry._

The last one proved to be quite safe to focus on. Hikaru concentrated wholly on the disgruntled grumbling of his stomach, and the mild weakness of a body that had gone over fifteen hours without food, to distract himself as he went back to his room to retrieve his wallet. And, while determinedly not allowing himself to think about it, he removed the fan from the kamidana and slipped it into his pocket. He would have to be in far more dire straits to go anywhere without it.

Lunch was just a sandwich, picked up at the corner shop closest to the hostel. He sat on a wall to eat it, and discarded the cardboard box it had come in at the nearest bin. He sat back on that wall for a while, staring blankly at the sky. It was a beautiful day. There weren't any proper clouds, just a fine white haze which suggested real clouds might form at some point later in the day. There was a pleasant breeze, too, chasing away the humidity of early summer.

It had been a beautiful day back then, too. Two years ago.

Irrationally bothered by the incongruity of the weather to his state of mind, Hikaru retreated to the hostel and disappeared back into his room. He replaced the fan at the kamidana, and stared at it for a while, weighty apathy sinking into his body. He wished he'd bought a goban of some sort with him – it might have been nice to replay a game or two in front of the fan. Sai, if he could see or hear any of this, would have liked that.

Hikaru lit another stick of incense, sat down in front of the kamidana, and allowed himself to fall back into remembrance and regret.

* * *

The second alarm went off six hours later, and Hikaru had difficulty caring about it this time. After a minute or so of listening to it, he sort of got used to the painful sound and it wasn't all that jarring. Not much longer after that, though, someone in the next room thumped thrice on the wall in protest.

Slowly, Hikaru got to his feet, leaning on the wall to support his dead legs as he disabled the alarm. He didn't look at the screen.

Feeling heavy and lethargic, Hikaru took the fan and headed to the bathroom to splash cold water on his face. He looked even crappier now, and felt worse. He was hungry, horribly thirsty, and had the mother of all headaches brewing behind his eyes. _Sai would smack me with his fan for getting like this,_ he thought, and went to get some tap water from the kitchen. He forced two glasses of it down his throat before he stopped, then left the hostel in search of food, one hand on the fan in his pocket.

He procured some ramen and sat down with it in the corner of the tiny restaurant. He stared at the broth as he contemplated heavy topics that he spent the vast majority of his time avoiding. It was actually a little easier to grieve like this now that he'd admitted that it probably wasn't his fault in any way. When you spent as long as he had in mourning that never seemed to improve, it was more or less natural that you'd start to wonder if you were just emotionally weak, maybe even psychologically unwell. Hikaru couldn't claim that those weren't still concerns, but…at this point, it seemed far more likely that this was a spirit-thing, a soul-thing even. It wasn't as though Hikaru had been in possession of any sort of spiritual knowledge back then, or would have had any hope of preventing what happened even if he did know something. It couldn't be his fault, surely.

Absently, Hikaru wondered if Sai had known there might be consequences to his possession. He thought it was very unlikely – after all, Sai had only ever possessed Torajirou before, and that guy had died while still with Sai. The ghost probably had no way of knowing what would happen if he actually left. He'd probably burst into tears if he ever found out about it, the big wuss.

The thought bought an involuntary smile to Hikaru's face. Sai had been _so weird_ , hadn't he? It was easy to forget all those quirks while he was so busy wallowing like this. No one would ever be as obsessed with Go as Sai was, _ever,_ or take the same childish delight in every game.

Hikaru exhaled, thinking, and took out his phone. He texted Ogata, saying _'hey, you up for a game on NetGo?'_

Sai would have wanted Hikaru to play Go, to have great games.

It was a few minutes later that he got a message back, saying only _'When?'_

Not quite able to summon a grin, Hikaru just smiled, and responded ' _30 minutes?'_ When the affirmative came, he finished his ramen in record time and walked back to the hostel, texting his still-alive message to Akari as he did. Both computers were occupied, but the guy on the left one seemed to just be sending an email, so Hikaru loitered conspicuously in wait, receiving an eye-roll for his trouble when the older boy signed out of his email and left the computer.

Hikaru was on that chair and logged into NetGo in a matter of minutes. He rejected about six challenges while he waited, one even from Touya, who was undoubtedly outraged at the response. Then _seiji_ logged on, and Hikaru challenged him at once.

The two of them did play from time to time. Ogata remained probably the most _sai_ obsessed person Hikaru knew, and had made a ritual of asking for an introduction or a game. Hikaru, in turn, had become more and more practiced at denying his capability to procure either thing. He knew he made a good showing in their games, particularly for a nidan, and he also knew that Ogata was reluctantly impressed with the rate of his improvement. Hikaru always lost, but they always had good games….and the margin that Hikaru lost by was shrinking all the time.

This one would not be a good game as the others were, Hikaru was certain. He would make sure of it.

He always immersed himself in his games. Always completely submerged himself in tactics and predicting and reading the influence as it spread across the board. He was always persistent in his games, and invariably canny, but today he was more than that. Today, Hikaru played _viciously_ , throwing every ounce of his will and spirit into the game, meeting Ogata's challenges all the while he spun traps into the stones, ploys lying in wait like venomous snakes for their chance to strike.

It was about ten minutes in that Ogata's play shifted in response, cutting Hikaru far more ruthlessly, an intensity coming into the game that had been missing before. It was _exhilarating._

Hikaru thought each and every move into the dark space in his mind, sent every thrill at territory taken and vicious anticipation of traps laid and indomitable belligerence when Ogata checked him. Nothing responded, nothing ever responded, but that wasn't enough to hold him back from the game.

In the end, Hikaru sat back in the chair with a long sigh, feeling absolutely exhausted and absolutely satisfied. As he'd promised himself, it hadn't been a good game at all – it had been an _excellent_ game.

He had lost by only five and a half moku, and had actually pushed Ogata into playing more seriously.

The message from Ogata in the discussion section came through as _'aren't you a vicious little bastard today?',_ except NetGo had a profanity filter now so _bastard_ was actually *******, but Hikaru could guess well enough.

' _Yep.'_ Hikaru typed out in response. _'Now, let's discuss my awesome game.'_

Later, he returned to his room, replaced the fan, and narrated every move of the game to the kamidana while a stick of _fuji_ streamed fragrant smoke through the room.

* * *

Hikaru concluded May 5th far more positively than he had expected. He was grieving, yes, and the empty space in his mind still _seriously hurt_ , but he'd sort of managed to push through all of that without really avoiding it to play one of the best games he'd ever played. The majority of the day had been exactly as he'd expected – he'd wallowed, and wallowed _hard_ , becoming so immersed in depression that it had been difficult to pull out of it again. But the evening, that match with Ogata?

…Maybe he'd be able to remember Sai properly, now.

On the morning of Tuesday 6th, Hikaru got up and sat in front of the kamidana for the length of time it took the incense to burn – around ten minutes. The grief and loss were no less intense than they'd ever been, and the absence of Sai still felt _terrible_ and _wrong_ , but when the last of the ashes fell Hikaru stood up and went on his way regardless. He was trembling a little as he washed up in the bathroom, and much less composed than he would risk being around the people back in Tokyo, but...he could do it. Shuddering, Hikaru stared at himself in the mirror and transformed his despair into resolve. The loss _hurt_ , it hurt terribly and it would probably never go away on its own, and _Sai wasn't there_. But…

If Sai wasn't there, and if that wasn't something he could ever come to terms with or accept, then the solution was obvious.

 _Get Sai back,_ Hikaru thought to himself, with grim determination, and channelled every ounce of pain and loss and emptiness he had into that goal.

* * *

Tuesday was spent, naturally, working through more shrines. He went to that big and intensely famous one, the Fushimi Inari shrine, and…yeah, it was impressive. The number of torii and fox sculptures was just outrageous, and the whole thing was as ostentatious a place of reverence as any major kami could ask for. Naturally, though, the kannushi had absolutely no time for him at all, and the miko weren't nearly as approachable as some in the other shrines were.

He snapped a number of pictures of everything, because Akari would be expecting it, but couldn't help the stab of frustration and disappointment at his ongoing failure to find anything of use. Hikaru responded to this by focusing, intently, on the sensation of _not right/empty/Sai is missing_ that emanated constantly from the hole in his mind. He focused on it until the idea of _not_ getting Sai back was so reprehensible, so unthinkable, that the incipient despair withered to nothing. He _would_ find Sai, even if it took him the rest of his life. No other possibility was acceptable.

Hikaru repeated this with every shrine-visit that yielded no results, with every attempt his stupid brain made at hopelessness or resignation, and did not push away the chronic grief no matter how frequently he had to go somewhere quiet to breathe deeply for a bit. It became a bit easier, and a bit more practiced, the more the day went on. The worst part of the whole never-ending loss thing was the heavy part, the depressive part, the part that was oppressive and slow and dragged him into a mire of despair. If he could ignore or brute-force his way through that aspect of grief…the rest was sort of manageable. If he focused, it could be a force for determination, for change.

Commuting around a big city was time consuming, and so Hikaru didn't get through all of the shrines on Tuesday. As was becoming habit, he got some fast food before heading back to the hostel to play NetGo, where he mercilessly destroyed several amateurs.

He didn't get through all of the shrines on Wednesday either, and looking at the list, resigned himself to the fact that he just plain wasn't going to manage them all. He'd been to all of the big ones, and the ones which tended to appear on tourist lists, but the tiny shrines you tended to find here and there which sometimes didn't even have an official kannushi? Yeah, there were _way_ too many of those.

Hikaru mercilessly extinguished his disappointment beneath a flood of _will absolutely find Sai_ as he packed up the kamidana on Wednesday evening, carefully covering it in the packing material the shopkeeper had put on it and closing the lid of the box. He appropriated some heavy-duty packing tape from the receptionist, who seemed to be using it to keep one of his chair's legs from falling off, and sealed the box very thoroughly before he squashed it into his suitcase. The other things fit in alright along the sides, but the kamidana in its box took up basically the whole thing, and he had to sit on the suitcase to zip it up once his clothes were in.

He didn't play any NetGo that evening. He just sat, and pondered the week. It wasn't like he'd achieved much, except a really fantastic game against Ogata, and maybe a way of dealing with his potential spirit-wound thing that wasn't just ignoring it in the hopes it would go away, but….he felt bizarrely accomplished, anyway. He had a goal, and he had a place to start on his road to achieving it.

The next morning, Hikaru slept in a little, got up just in time to get breakfast, and passed the time until his train on NetGo. At around half past eleven, he dragged himself and his considerably heavier-than-before luggage to the train station, and boarded the train back to Tokyo at 1pm.

It wasn't like he'd found any solution to his issues in Kyoto, or was any closer to figuring out how to find Sai. Nonetheless, it felt like the week had been worth it.

All the way back, Hikaru sat remembering times he'd spent with Sai, and steadily diverted his grief and pain into a determination more powerful than any he'd felt before.

Those times weren't just memories. They weren't all he had left of Sai. He _would_ find that crazy ghost someday, and there was nothing that could stop him.

* * *

Hikaru trudged up the path to his house later that day, his arms grumbling at him for his decision to haul a kamidana all the way from Kyoto. It wasn't as if they were hard to find – he could easily have found one in Tokyo. But…well, Kyoto seemed a more meaningful place to source one, so that was that.

He let himself in, calling "I'm home!" as he yanked the suitcase through the front door. There was a startled sound in the next room, and then his mother was coming through.

"Welcome home!" Shindou Mitsuko said, happily, hugging him. "Did you have a good time in Osaka with your friend?"

"I did." Hikaru said truthfully, with a rueful grin. "I played lots of Go."

"I'm not sure why you needed to go all the way to Osaka to do _that_ , Hikaru." His mother said fondly, with a little laugh. "But I'm glad you had fun. Are you hungry?"

He brightened. He'd not had a home-cooked meal for, like, six days. " _Yes,_ " He said, as emphatically as he possibly could.

His mother laughed again. "I needn't have asked, really." She commented, and headed to the kitchen. "I'll get started on a nice big dinner, then."

Hikaru sang her praises all the while he pulled his suitcase upstairs and into his room, stopping once he'd closed the door. He opened the suitcase and consigned the clothing therein to the laundry basket, and returned to withdraw the kamidana in its box. He put it on his bed and stared at it, not really sure where to put it. For lack of any better thoughts, he pushed the box under his bed, and then put the rest of the stuff into a drawer with his shirts. The incense burner was the only thing he didn't put in with the clothing, since it was still a bit ashy and he didn't want it staining anything. After a moment of consideration, he put it next to a pair of old shoes at the bottom of his wardrobe.

Having packed away the spoils of his trip, minus two disposable cameras which needed to have their film developed, Hikaru really wasn't sure what to do next. It wasn't as though there was enough time left in the day to continue his epic quest, but he didn't really have time for NetGo before dinner either.

After some deliberation, Hikaru headed to the usually-vacant study of his usually-absent dad to turn on the computer which was basically his now. He sat down with a search engine, some pen, and paper, and meticulously started writing down the locations of Tokyo's shrines. As in Kyoto, he'd get through the well-known ones before he started scouring maps and address books for the smaller types. He'd managed to get a fair sized list down before he got called for dinner.

It was later in the evening, after Hikaru had devoured the magnificent thing that was his mother's cooking, that his neighbour dropped in. Presumably via a highly sophisticated network of covert agents, and perhaps electronic monitoring equipment, Akari always seemed to know when he was home. He had accused her of being a spy in the past for this suspicious behaviour, and would not be dissuaded from the truth no matter how many times she told him "Your _bedroom light was on,_ Hikaru, it's not like it's hard to figure out!"

"Tell me why I shouldn't tell your mother that you spent precisely one day in Osaka." Akari demanded, more or less the instant she'd managed to bully her way into his room and close the door.

"Because I kept to our pact and took lots of photographs?" Hikaru suggested, indicating the two cheap cameras on the dresser. "And also I didn't die, which I think was part of the deal too."

Akari pondered that for a moment, and said "I will keep my silence, but if the photographs are not as agreed, this may change."

"I'm pretty damn sure they're as agreed, so there." Hikaru assured her, rolling his eyes.

"We'll see." Akari answered dubiously. "So, what did you actually get up to in Kyoto?"

"Visited loads of shrines, failed to visit the Imperial Palace, had an epic NetGo match with Ogata, and trampled some guys in a local Go salon." He summarised, after a moment to think. "I got some guidebooks for the palace, though, even if I didn't manage to get on a tour."

"I didn't think you would. Getting onto the palace tours requires you to actually plan ahead." She said dryly.

Hikaru glared. "Oi."

"It's better than nothing, though. Where are the books?"

Hikaru blinked, remembering he'd not actually taken those out of the suitcase's front pocket yet, and went to retrieve the suitcase from the cupboard he'd stashed it in. He spent the evening listening to Akari demonstrate that she knew more about history than he did. It was _riveting,_ really. He absolutely _could not_ imagine a better way to spend his evening. Nope, not at all.

He regained his ground when, later on, he withdrew his goban and heckled her into a teaching match. She wasn't a dedicated player by any means, but usually humoured him when he insisted on playing her. It wasn't like many people got free lessons from pro players, after all, and she was sensible enough to take advantage of it.

* * *

The main thing that occurred the next day was that Hikaru returned to work. He'd been scheduled for a game that day, with the organisers clearly wanting to get it in before the weekend, so he was at the Institute bright and early for the commencement of his pro match.

He'd read through some kifu of his opponent's previous matches, and they were pretty good. Hikaru was reasonably sure he could beat her, but would reserve judgement for the game. He thought of his intense, vicious match against Ogata consideringly, not sure whether that sort of aggressiveness would actually be useful as a long-term addition to his strategy, or whether it had just been enough of a surprise to Ogata that it worked that time. He wasn't certain he wanted to risk an official match on it, but…he would see.

The match started as they all tended to, with a bow and traditional pleasantries. Hikaru dove into the game as intently as he usually did, allowing his focus to drown everything else out. He played perhaps more aggressively than usual, but not largely so. By the midgame, they seemed a bit more even than he preferred, so…carefully, Hikaru immersed himself in a little of that indomitable will that had carried him through his match with Ogata. He _concentrated_ , thinking of what he knew of his opponent's style and favoured hands as he considered what she might play next. He found that, when he approached the game from that place of will and certainty, he saw much more clearly than he usually did.

It wasn't like the game he'd played on May 5th. Not even close. But it _was_ different, and Hikaru stared at the board searchingly after accepting his opponent's resignation.

Maybe he'd found something new in his Go.

After the match, it was a bit late in the day to go about doing any proper shrine visiting, so the most Hikaru did on his way home was go to a print shop to get his photos developed. He selected a few to show his mother, a number which wouldn't seem suspicious, and shoved the rest at Akari when she inevitably came to bother him in the evening. She stayed for dinner, which was a pretty common occurrence, and watched over his shoulder as he sat down for a nice few NetGo slaughters.

Most of the guys were way too weak to practice new strategies and styles on, so he just settled for flattening them more quickly and ruthlessly than he usually tended to. Most of them were so easy to predict that he found himself narrating their likeliest moves to Akari as he played, and she listened with fascination as he used the boring matches as an opportunity to teach her a bit more. Finally, about four very quick games in, Yashiro appeared, bringing with him the prospect of a real match. Hikaru accepted the challenge with relish, and told Akari not to bother him as he got down to business.

Sai would have liked Yashiro. The other boy's Go was _interesting_ , it used hands that just weren't standard in the least. Yashiro had made a style out of bizarre plots and unpredictable moves, but he tended to fall short against Hikaru because he was a similarly deceitful bastard in-game, which gave him a certain insight into weird plays that most people lacked. Yashiro might have made his style out of unpredictability, but Hikaru was making it into an art form.

Hikaru grinned as the match progressed. Playing against Yashiro was just _fun,_ it was unusual and different and Sai would have been delighted by it, even if he could flatten them both at record speed. He reached out to the empty space, thinking _are you watching, Sai?_

The world falling away, Hikaru clicked his stones into place.

* * *

Almost invariably, weekends were totally free of official matches. Hikaru was pretty grateful for this time, since his mother had only allowed him to drop out of school on the condition he study to take his exams in his own time. So, pretty much, he had a hell of a lot of independent work to do at weekends, and his mother _checked_ to make sure he was doing it.

That weekend, Hikaru elected to kill two birds with one stone, and took his study materials along to the first shrine on his list. After trying and failing to consult with a kannushi there, he promptly took himself and his study materials away again, because the shrine was popular and crowded and not at all a peaceful studying environment.

The second shrine was better. Hikaru had a talk with the kannushi, confirmed he wasn't useful in the least, and sat down on a nearby bench to study for an hour. It ended up actually being forty-five minutes, because Hikaru didn't really have a good attention span for things that weren't Go, and then he left to the next destination. He repeated this procedure twice more before it was getting to mid-afternoon, and past time to head back.

The next day, Waya came with an amused Isumi in tow to commandeer Hikaru from any plans he might have had.

"If you're going to disappear for a week for bullshit reasons, then you need to make up lost game time!" Proclaimed Waya, as exhibit A of how he was just as obsessed with Go as one tended to expect of pro players. "And you're not getting out of it, either!"

"I wouldn't want to." Hikaru said cheerfully, dragging the both of them upstairs to his room. His poor goban didn't get nearly enough games. "I need to try out some stuff I came up the other day."

"Something you came up with on your journey of self-discovery?" Isumi inquired, lips quirking.

Hikaru nodded. "Yep." He set up the goban, providing pillows on either side of it, and set both pots of stones to the side. "Who's first?"

Waya answered by inviting himself to sit on one of the proffered pillows, staring expectantly at Hikaru. Isumi sighed and sat down in seiza to observe.

Once Hikaru was seated, they guessed stones for nigiri, and he ended up with black. Very advantageous. He bowed his _onegaishimasu_ in time with Waya, and sat back to contemplate. He thought of the game, and he thought of the empty void in his mind.

Reaching out in some bizarre way he couldn't really quantify, Hikaru perched on the verge of a great abyss. The abyss was empty, when even now Hikaru couldn't help but expect there to be the shifting sense of a lively mind, flashes of excitement and interest inevitable at every game of Go. The absence was as jarring as it ever was, and came with the horrible grief that had become so familiar. Hopelessness reached, as it always did, but Hikaru wouldn't let it near. With his eyes open, his thoughts skirted the edge of a void which should not exist within him, and promised himself that one day, he would be whole again.

 _Let's play, Sai._

Hikaru placed his first stone.

He was very familiar with Waya's style. They played often, and Hikaru won far more often than he lost. He usually had the upper hand, but Waya _was_ a good player, and wasn't to be underestimated. Nonetheless, he was _used_ to Waya, he knew how he thought and how he operated. It made him a very good opponent to really go to town on. Anticipation unfurling in him, Hikaru went on the offensive and, for the most part, stayed there.

Two hours later, Waya gaped at the black-and-white evidence of how poorly he'd fared, and instead of thanking Hikaru for the game, said "What the _hell_ have you been eating?" It was an odd enough thing to ask in reference to sudden improvement at Go that both Hikaru and Isumi were silent for a moment.

"Cosmic power." Hikaru decided, after a brief pause. "And universe juice."

Once he managed to deflect Waya from his affront, they sat down to replay and discuss the game. Hikaru mercilessly pointed out where Waya hadn't really managed to stand up to him, but didn't spare himself either, pointing out where the shift in his style was still rough and left openings. Openings that Waya hadn't noticed, apparently, but they were there. Isumi contributed as well, helpfully noting some parts they'd both missed, as well as his own assessment of Hikaru's playing.

"It's interesting, what you've done with this match." He said, peering at the stones. "But it's risky, and definitely needs some polish. If you weren't so good at reading ahead, it wouldn't have worked nearly as well. It might not work as well on opponents you're not used to, either."

Hikaru accepted the comments with a nod. "Yeah, knowing Waya's style made it a lot easier." He acknowledged. "I do definitely need to practice. But the first time I tried playing like this, a few days ago, was against Ogata. And it was _awesome,_ even though he's way stronger than me and we don't even play that much."

Two sets of eyes glinted with interest. "Replay it?" Waya asked.

"Sure." He agreed, and cleared the stones to begin. A game like that wasn't one you forgot quickly, especially when you'd narrated it to a kamidana soon after concluding it.

He placed his and Ogata's stones, explaining as he went his reasoning behind the various moves, and what he'd thought Ogata was up to in various areas. He had a very attentive audience, both of them clearly rapt as they watched the hands play out, whistling at a couple of points where Hikaru's plots had _really_ paid off. He knew Ogata would be far more watchful the next time they played, so he likely wouldn't do nearly as well, but he was still pretty damn proud of this game. He'd played it for Sai.

Once he was finished, all three of them admired the board. "You're right, Shindou. That was a pretty awesome game." Waya decided.

Isumi nodded. "If anything, after watching this, I'd say you weren't aggressive _enough_ against Waya." He said. "It seems like your traps work better if you're keeping your opponent focused on the more obvious aggressive plays you do. I can see you've got a lot of different plans going, on different levels, to counter Ogata's or to trick him. I still say that this only works because you can read ahead so well, but…with some practice, I can see this sort of playing really improving the standard of your games."

"What he said." Waya agreed. "I'm not sure you should be giving him too many ideas though, Isumi."

The young man smiled. "We'll see." He turned back. "Shall we play?"

A while after his friends had left, Hikaru replayed their games on his goban with interest.

Isumi had been right when he said that playing like this was a step forward. It was just like his preferred mode of playing, but more aggressive, with more levels to the traps. And, he agreed, it wouldn't work at all if he couldn't read his opponent's moves so well.

Reading ahead had been a strength of his from quite early on. There were so many ways for someone to play out a single strategy, and so many strategies, that trying too hard to predict what an opponent would do could seriously mess up your game. But Hikaru…didn't have that problem, as much as other people did. He tended to be good at guessing which possibilities his rivals would favour, and therefore he would plan accordingly.

So, what was different now? How come being a bit more of a vicious bastard made so much of a difference?

Even after multiple replays of his games against three people, he wasn't certain. His best guess was that he was trusting his intuition more, now. Taking more risks than he had before. That would probably end badly for him at some point, so he did need more practice to see how often that risk-taking worked out for him. He supposed he would see.

After all that playing, his day was pretty much done for. He ate dinner, and once back in his room, hesitated.

He didn't want to do what he'd been doing for so long, for two years. He didn't want to avoid any thought of Sai just because it caused him pain. Sai had been too important for that; he deserved more.

After a lengthy pause, Hikaru retrieved the items he'd bought in Kyoto. He set the kamidana, the candles, and the incense burner atop his chest of drawers, and locked his door before lighting the incense. He opened a window, just to be safe. Finally, the fan found its place in the kamidana, and Hikaru sat down in front of it with his goban. The goban he and Sai had shared so many games on, that Sai had been so outrageously excited over.

It might not be a thick kaya board, with stones of the highest quality shell and slate, but it was important. This was the board upon which Sai had first trounced him, and then trounced him again so many times more. This was the board whose arrival had sent the ghost into such a state of effervescent excitement and joy that it had actually radiated out from his mind and into Hikaru's, a bemusing sensation that boosted his own mood a fair bit in response.

Hikaru grinned a little at the memory, and looked up. "…Hey, Sai." He said, softly so as not to alert his mother. "I played some games with Waya and Isumi today. I don't know if you heard, or saw. In case you didn't, I'll play them out for you again. You'd better be listening this time. Or watching. Whatever. Anyway, I've been trying to play more offensively since that game with Ogata…"

He might just be speaking at nothing, but he didn't care. If Sai was out there, and could hear him somehow, then that was great. If he couldn't hear him, it made no real difference. If he could talk to Sai like this, even if he wasn't listening, then it was less like giving up. More like believing that he'd be back someday, and he could recount all of this in person.

The empty space would never stop causing him pain, or radiating grief, and it was harder to acknowledge those feelings than to push them away. But…it was worth it. Sai deserved more than to be put out of Hikaru's mind because it was uncomfortable to remember him.

Hikaru talked Sai through the day's games, for a fair while after the incense had burned out. Afterwards, he packed everything except the incense burner away, deciding that it probably wasn't feasible to hide an incense-burning habit.

The fan, as always, stayed with him.

* * *

Over the next few weeks, Hikaru settled into a new routine. He went to his scheduled games, and played it reasonably safe in the first few, well aware that he needed more practice before he got too confident. He visited Touya Koyo's Go salon frequently, pretty much because it was the best place to play Touya. His rival had been more than slightly peeved at his yet-unexplained week away, and took it out on him in their games.

This worked just fine for Hikaru, as he was using every worthwhile unofficial game he could to practice being more aggressive and decisive in his play.

Usually, he and Touya were pretty evenly matched. Touya tended to win more games, but not by much. Slowly, though, the scales were tipping.

Two weeks after Hikaru had returned, Touya sat back from their concluded game, staring at it critically. "You improved, after that ridiculous holiday." He commented. "I'll have to step up my game as well."

"Makes you wish you were taking a week long mystery journey, right?" Hikaru asked, and was quite certain that the only reason he didn't receive a stone to the face was that Touya respected his equipment too much.

He was certainly improving. Rather than the steady, gruelling grind that it usually took to get better, Hikaru found himself slipping into a style of playing which was as sneaky as it was aggressive. He trusted his intuition about an opponent's strategy more, and was rarely mistaken. Stronger players, like Touya and other higher dans, could throw him off by changing plans or just plain outsmarting him, but there was no denying that Hikaru's skill was on the up.

Meanwhile, when he had time, Hikaru worked down his list of shrines. He was getting to the bottom of the tourist list, and would probably have to start looking at maps and address books soon. He studied for his classes when he could, but frankly Go took the priority there and he wasn't going to pretend otherwise.

Every Sunday, Hikaru procured a few hours to set up his kamidana, light some incense, and tell Sai about the week, replaying his favourite games of the last seven days. On the third Sunday, Hikaru got tired of always packing the kamidana away, and built a discreet shrine in his wardrobe, perching the kamidana and its accompaniments on one of the wide shelves. This had the side effect of making all of his clothes smell like incense, something which did not go unnoticed.

"You've been burning incense, Hikaru?" His mother asked, not long after he got back. "Where did you even get it from?" Overall, though, she was slightly bemused but accepting of the fact that her son now seemed to like incense, only cautioning him not to leave it burning unattended.

Akari also noticed very quickly. "It smells smoky and flowery in here now, every time I'm here." She told him. "You're actually using incense? Did all those shrines actually influence you a little?" Akari mocked him for it a little, because he'd certainly criticised her perfumes in the past, but otherwise just wanted to know what the scent was.

Waya initially thought he was wearing perfume and laughed, provoking a rather long and heated squabble which was only concluded by Isumi commenting that the smell was too smoky for perfume. Touya, who came from a pretty traditional family, also had no difficulty identifying the smell and seemed vaguely confused by it, as everyone agreed that burning incense wasn't something you'd expect of Shindou Hikaru.

Nonetheless, everyone got used to it, and life went on.

He'd fallen into such a comfortable routine that, one day, when Akari located his list of shrines, she surprised him a little.

"You're still visiting shrines, Hikaru?" She said, surprised. "You must actually like them."

He considered his answer. "I don't really. I mostly like bothering the kannushi." It was even mostly true.

She rolled her eyes. "So, are you only going to the big touristy ones? Because you know there's a nice little shrine not ten minutes from your grandpa's house."

Hikaru, who was pretty much at the end of his list of larger shrines, blinked at her in surprise.

* * *

His grandpa lived pretty close to them. Not close enough that it wasn't a pain to walk there, but really not bad. Despite that, Hikaru rarely visited, having been put off the last two years by his adamant avoidance of anything Sai-related. But that didn't really apply anymore, did it? Maybe it would be a good idea to look at Shusaku's goban again.

So, a weekend about five weeks past his trip to Kyoto, Hikaru went to visit his grandfather.

Shindou Heihachi had been living alone for a while now. His wife, Hikaru's grandma, was unfortunately not quite as healthy as him, and spent most of her time reading in an armchair, and did not leave the house very much. Heihachi, on the other hand, did frequent Go salons, even if he didn't compete in amateur tournaments like he did in his youth. He certainly kept up with Go news, pleased in the extreme that his brat of a grandson had become a professional player.

"I've not seen you for months, you brat." Heihachi greeted him at the door. "What in hell have you been doing?"

"Oh, I dunno, _playing Go?_ " Hikaru suggested, inviting himself in by ducking under his grandpa's arm. The elderly man swiftly pursued him as he added "It's sort of my job, you know."

"Well, you're clearly not doing it well, if you're still second dan. You need to stop lollygagging and make your way up the ranks!" His illustrious forebear informed him, brushing past to open the door to the sitting room.

"I'd like to see _you_ beat any of the guys I play." Hikaru muttered in response, a little sourly. He, too, was a bit annoyed he'd not advanced yet. It should be soon, but still…

"I know full well that's beyond me. And on that note, you'll be giving me a game before you go. What are you even here for, anyway?"

Hikaru paused. "I wanted to have a look at those gobans you have stored away." He said, eventually. "I remember you had some pretty good ones sitting there, going to waste."

Heihachi paused, and eyed him. "Not that old kaya board, I hope?" He asked archly. "I heard some damned weird stories about that thing, and given the way you collapsed on it however many years ago, I'm tempted to believe them."

"Grandpa, your ghost stories are dumb and no one believes them." Hikaru told him imperiously. "Now, let's have your game already. I want to go poke through your stuff."

It still sort of weirded Hikaru out when he beat his grandpa at Go. It wasn't as though he didn't beat lots of old guys on a regular basis, but it was much stranger when it was his own grandfather. After all, the man had been competing in amateur tournaments before Hikaru had even been born. He'd been learning and playing Go for longer than Hikaru had been _alive_ , and yet here he was, totally outclassed by his grandson. It was just...really odd to think about, sometimes.

The match was a reasonably short one, and was followed by a post-game constructive bitching session rather than any genuine discussion. Heihachi was an argumentative old codger and Hikaru was an argumentative young brat, so really they were far too alike to interact without getting very argumentative about it.

As a result Heihachi was argumentative enough that he insisted on accompanying Hikaru on his foray into his storage, and would not be dissuaded however much the boy moaned and complained at him.

"You are far too superstitious." Hikaru informed his grandfather as they entered the dusty room. "One of these days, your superstition will kill you. You'll see a curtain blowing in the wind, think it's a ghost, and you'll just die of fright because you're old and your heart can't take it."

"I stand by my concerns, you ignorant ankle-biter." Heihachi groused. "Will you get on with your looking around so I can stop wasting my time?"

"It's your own fault you're wasting your own time." Hikaru muttered, looking up the steep steps with trepidation. If he remembered correctly, it was up there he'd found the goban which had changed his life. Carefully, he made his way upwards, looking around until he found the thing under a dust cloth. Gently, he removed the cover, and stared at the gorgeous polished surface, free of any blemish. It really was a work of art…but he did wish that the wood bore the tears and blood which had started it all.

He touched the empty space in his mind, hesitantly. Called a wordless query into the shapeless void.

He waited for several moments, and sighed.

"You done yet?" Heihachi hollered up at him.

Hikaru stroked the surface of the goban, once. "Yeah, I'm done."

Business concluded, Hikaru squashed his disappointment and made his farewells, leaving the house in the direction of this supposed shrine.

* * *

 _End chapter 2.  
_

 **Story notes (09/10/17):** Got around to doing some more editing. Fixed a mistake in this chapter and made several minor edits. The current chapter count for Paper Cranes is 19, all of which are on tumblr and 18 of which are on ao3. The word count is in the region of 170k. There are also art and QA posts and such on my tumblr, though it'll be intensely spoilery if you've only read up to here.

Once my edited chapters catch up to ao3, I'll edit all the ao3 chapters and probably the tumblr ones as well. For now, the most up-to-date chapters are here on ffnet.

Thank you to everyone who came from ao3/tumblr to give attention to this yet-small ffnet edition. Hopefully in time Paper Cranes will take a similar place in the fandom rankings here as it has on ao3 :)


	3. Chapter 3

Paper Cranes

Chapter 3

The shrine was small, with only a single lonely building to its name. There was a torii, of course, but aside from that the only indication that it was a shrine was the fox statue beside the building. An Inari shrine, then – unsurprising, as they were the most common sort in Japan. After seeing the behemoth of an Inari shrine in Kyoto as well as a number of larger ones in Tokyo itself, this one wasn't particularly impressive. It was quiet and pretty enough, he supposed, surrounded by trees as it was, but overall pretty boring.

But...wait. Was that...?

Intrigued, Hikaru traversed the shrine's modest clearing and went to inspect some sort of colourful vine growing up a post and then onto one of the trees. There were a number of small purple flowers, and they looked like the stylised image on his _fuji_ tubes. They were growing pretty high up, so it took some stretching to get his face level with one to smell it.

It...was a faint scent. Much fainter than in the incense, and a lot fainter than what he remembered from Sai. It smelled the same, though.

Hikaru stepped back, looking at the wisteria vine with a little bemusement. Fancy that – the closest shrine to his grandpa's place, and presumably the closest to his as well, had a damn wisteria vine in it. That was...almost suspiciously coincidental. Or it would be if he thought the plant wisteria had anything to do with Sai himself. Or if he hadn't seen similar vines growing in several people's gardens. As it was, it was probably just a plain old coincidence. He might as well find the kannushi, though, if a place this small even had one. He glanced around.

Kannushi were pretty distinctive in their garb, and as such, it was not at all difficult to spot this one. He was younger looking than a lot of the guys tended to be. Hikaru had learned more or less by necessity that it tended to be a family thing, with sons of kannushi also training to be kannushi and so on. Maybe this guy was the same, or maybe he'd been at it a while. His age was a bit hard to guess, but he was probably in his mid-thirties. Maybe.

He was also giving Hikaru the _weirdest_ look.

It was half confusion, half grimace. It shifted a few seconds in to a mild sneer of distaste, and an incongruent sort of concern. The guy was probably worried he was going to go around wrecking the place. Hikaru hadn't witnessed that standard of stink eye for a good while, but this was definitely a contender for the 'most hostile reaction a stranger had to Hikaru' award. He was almost outright staring, and looked nearly _offended._

Hikaru felt an impulse that had lain dormant for ages. It was an ancient and noble impulse, calling him to action against injustice: it was the impulse to go forth and _profoundly_ annoy someone. Namely, the guy who had taken such exception to his presence.

Unfortunately, he didn't have any good priest annoying gear on him. A bit of litter might have worked nicely, these guys tended to get tremendously pissy about that sort of thing. He had basically nothing with him, though. And also intentional littering was probably one of those things that professional Go players such as himself should avoid. Damn.

Well, maybe he could come back and be a bother some other day. It was only a twenty-something minute walk away, after all.

* * *

It was, in fact, two months before Hikaru returned to his local shrine.

July was a good month for festivals. So was August. There were all sorts of outdoors fair type things, trying to raise awareness for the game and get some new players interested. There were a couple of actual fully-fledged events, one of which Hikaru was asked to teach at. The rest he gate-crashed and taught at anyway. He liked teaching, even if his students didn't always approve of his methods or even ask to be taught in the first place.

A big gathering was made out of a match between Kuwabara and Kurata, who was an eighth dan now. Hikaru bullied and negotiated his way to a good seat in the room they were televising it in, with some Kansai branch rokudan providing commentary in front of the projected image of the goban. Hikaru sat down, fixing his eyes onto the game with enough intensity that anything that tried to obstruct the screen would probably catch on fire. Kuwabara was an opponent whose every kifu Hikaru had studied, because he _seriously_ wanted the old guy's title. 'Honinbou' was a piece of Sai, and he was the only one who knew it and appreciated it for what it was…so he would claim the title from the old bastard if it was the last thing he ever did. He'd made no secret of his aspirations, and accordingly his companion to this event, Touya, only shook his head at him.

Hikaru would show him, though. He would _show everyone_ , and the damned title _would_ be his!

...at any rate, there was a lot on in July and even more in August, so it was understandable that Hikaru had been busy. Especially since he was now sure his ranking to third dan was incoming, and he needed to practice more than ever to be ready. And it wasn't like trolling some random judgemental priest was all that high on his priority list, anyway – he had a _lot_ of shrines to visit in his increasingly scarce free time. He had completed the tourist list and was now working his way through the smaller shrines in proximity to his house and the Go institute, so really, going back to a shrine he'd already visited wasn't an efficient use of his time.

One Sunday afternoon, though, Hikaru paused in his narrative to Sai's shintai with a sudden thought. It was too late to commute to any of the further shrines, but…. "You know, it's early enough still that I could totally go to that shrine and freak out the kannushi a bit." He mused, half to the kamidana and half to himself. "You'd probably tell me off for it, wouldn't you?" he asked the absent ghost. "Or maybe you wouldn't." Sai had sometimes become very incensed when he felt that something untoward was going on; their occasional encounters with fraudsters had demonstrated that well enough. He wasn't certain if a priest giving him some major stink eye would have got Sai's hackles up, but eh.

Hikaru considered his plans for the afternoon. He had to study anyway, so... "Yeah, I think I'll go." He decided. "Talk later, Sai."

He threw away the ashes of the incense, snuffed out the candle flames, and concealed the kamidana on its wardrobe-shelf using a strategically placed coat. He checked his book bag briefly to make sure it had all the essentials, and set off for the shrine.

The kannushi wasn't there when Hikaru arrived, which was bizarrely disappointing. He'd been hoping to rile the guy up a bit by pretending to litter, eating noisily, and that sort of minor irritating thing. Shrugging, Hikaru figured he might as well get some work done so as to placate his mother, and went to sit down near the wisteria. There weren't many flowers, now – lots had withered and fallen off. He supposed its flowering season was ending, or something like that. Still, it was a nice little grassy corner to sit himself in, so sit himself there he did.

He was a short way into his English verb conjugations, detesting how little of a pattern they had, when he heard a clattering sound and looked up. It transpired that the kannushi was there after all, apparently inside the little shrine building. Hikaru noted the broom and dustpan which had been unceremoniously dropped onto the ground, and raised an eyebrow at the kannushi. Who was _staring_ at him, looking so profoundly astonished that Hikaru couldn't help but snicker a bit. This did not go unnoticed, and the kannushi's shock swiftly transformed to a sort of wary ire. Hikaru watched him for a few seconds, observing as the man stiffly picked up his cleaning implements and disappeared from sight around the back of the building.

Amused, but also perplexed at the reaction, Hikaru returned to his verbs. In the space of a few minutes he was mentally cursing the English and their damned inconsistent language. It was just _inconsiderate_ to have basically all the often-used verbs be irregular in some way, forcing innocent foreigners to have to _memorise_ things rather than relying on easy patterns.

 _Damn you, English._ Hikaru shook his fist at the vocabulary for dramatic effect. _Why must you be the language of the internet?_

When did 'to ring' conjugate in the past tense as 'rung' and when as 'ringed', or even 'rang'? What was the difference between 'sneaked' and 'snuck'? How on Earth did one lay down in the past tense in English? Was it 'lied down', which could be confused with some sort of untruthfulness? Was it 'laid down', which could also be used to describe the action of _laying bricks_? And why did everything to do with laying down have to specify the direction it laid in? It should just be 'laid', for a simpler verb of 'to lay'...except maybe not, because Hikaru remembered that 'to lay' was some sort of English sex euphemism. God, he hated English.

Hikaru grimly battled his way through the accursed language exercises, looking up from time to time as the kannushi went about his business, raking leaves and inspecting the shrine. He really seemed to dislike Hikaru, since whatever he did he seemed to have an eye on him, with that same half-offended expression on his face.

Seemed he didn't actually have to rile the guy up at all, as the man was managing it perfectly well on his own.

Hikaru finished six far-too-long grammatical exercises in his English workbook and then couldn't bear to do anymore. He spent the remaining twenty minutes of his study hour duelling with the concept of simultaneous equations, which he found significantly easier.

An hour after he had sat down, Hikaru packed his stuff and stood up, stretching. He noticed the kannushi staring watchfully from beside the shrine building, eyes narrowed. Hikaru grinned mockingly, and left through the torii, finding himself somewhat intrigued.

His first impression of that kannushi had been of some judgmental asshole who looked at the bleached hair and bright clothing and thought _delinquent_. He'd attributed the suspicious and watchful looks to worries that Hikaru would desecrate the shrine in some way, maybe by littering or – Inari forbid – spray painting.

That impression didn't quite hold up any more.

He'd been _studying_ , for god's sake. He'd just sat there and studied, maybe not peacefully, but quietly and without being a dick to his surroundings. And yet the kannushi spent the whole time overtly or covertly staring at him as he went about his business, expression ranging from suspicious to worried to outright scowling. He was either just a monumental dickhead, or had some other reason to hate Hikaru on sight.

Hikaru found himself _very curious_ to know what exactly this priest's problem was. Hikaru was not good at restraining his curiosity.

* * *

The third time Hikaru returned to the little Inari shrine was only four days later, quite late in Thursday's afternoon.

This time the kannushi spotted him coming, looked almost panicked, and disappeared into the shrine building. It was thoroughly unusual.

Hikaru stared at the building as he navigated to his spot by the wisteria, setting out his history books to do the required reading. He didn't do a very good job of this reading, on account of being so damned curious about the priest – he couldn't stop glancing at the building for any hint of movement.

Much to his disappointment, the kannushi didn't emerge from the building for the entire hour. Hikaru packed his books away, shouldered his bag, and made his way out through the torii's red archway.

Though he hadn't seen very much of the guy this time, disappearing into the shrine like that was also pretty suspicious. It was almost like he was _hiding_ from Hikaru.

It was _weird,_ and Hikaru couldn't resist that sort of crap in the slightest.

* * *

The fourth time Hikaru went to the shrine was a week after the second, reasonably early on the Sunday. He decided to leave his 'Sai time' for the late afternoon or evening, and have a longer than usual shrine study session in the hopes of learning something about that weird priest.

The weird priest in question saw him coming through the torii, and vanished at once into the shrine proper.

It was sort of annoying this time, actually. Hikaru wouldn't be able to figure out what was up with the guy if he just hid in the shrine every time he was there.

Perplexed, intrigued, and irritated all at once, Hikaru elected to do some English exercises. It was fitting accompaniment for such emotions.

The thing with the kannushi abruptly became far weirder and more interesting when, half an hour after he'd disappeared, the priest emerged with his priest baton thing, the shaku, and started touring the shrine. Hikaru couldn't figure out what he was doing at first, until he saw the man stop at the fox statue and move on – he'd left something stuck to its bib. He watched with fascination, feeling almost as if he was observing the behaviour of a bizarre alien beast, as the priest determinedly made his way around and then disappeared into the honden again.

Hikaru tried to resist. He really did. But in the end, it only took about a minute after the kannushi had gone inside for him to walk over and inspect the fox.

On its chest was an ofuda. An _ofuda._ Hikaru stared at it incredulously, and then irreverently peeled it off, reading what looked like freshly-inked script with his eyebrows raising.

The ofuda, quite unremarkably, asked for protection from a kami, in this case Inari. This was normal, expected even, given that it was an Inari shrine. Much more bizarrely, it was specifically asking for protection against _malevolent spirits_ and _spiritual harm._

Hikaru stared at the paper in his hand, not entirely certain he was seeing correctly. He read it again and again and one last time for good measure, but nope, that definitely said what he thought he had. He left the fox and walked around the shrine, finding similar ofuda on the shrine building, assorted trees, a bench, a rock, and one on each of the torii's legs.

He was inspecting the torii's pair with consternation when he heard the kannushi emerge from the shrine. Hikaru looked over at him, beyond baffled, and noted that there was now an ofuda hanging around his _neck_ , and the baton was still present.

The kannushi looked around swiftly, eyes landing first on where he'd been sitting and his books still were, and for a moment looked profoundly relieved. Then he looked the other way, and saw Hikaru. He froze and stared straight at him, looking very much like a deer caught in the headlights of an oncoming vehicle.

And, okay, that was more than enough. Hikaru couldn't take this shit anymore, it had become far too weird. He approached the kannushi, intent on opening a dialogue with the perplexing priest.

The kannushi promptly started panicking, if his jerky movements and the expression on his face were any indication. He retreated a little, clutched at his baton, and stared wildly at the approach of Hikaru as if he were regarding the approach of a velociraptor rather than that of a fifteen-year-old boy.

When Hikaru was only a few metres away, and about to open his mouth to ask _'what the hell',_ the kannushi lost it and brandished the shaku at him, eyes wide. Hikaru stared at the baton with absolutely no idea of what was going through the man's head, until the priest shrieked " _Begone_ , foul demon!" and with his other hand threw a handful of ofuda at him.

Most brushed lightly against Hikaru before flopping uselessly onto the ground. A single one clung lightly to his shirt, fluttering gently in the breeze.

Hikaru looked down at it, and then up again at the trembling priest. Because what. "What the hell." Hikaru said, feeling like he'd said it far too late, and that it wasn't nearly enough for the kind of bullshit he had found himself in. The kannushi continued to _stare_ at him, looking actually sort of terrified, as whatever he had expected to happen did not happen. Tentatively, Hikaru peeled the ofuda from his shirt and brought it up to read, only managing to confirm that it seemed the same as the others before the priest absolutely _freaked._

Abandoning any pretence of knowing what was going on in his life, Hikaru watched a grown man flee from him in terror.

Hikaru watched the door of the shrine building for a while, even went back to do his studying so he wouldn't be spending the time uselessly. He only studied sporadically, but he still stayed there for a good two hours, maybe more. The shrine's honden wasn't something the public were allowed inside, only the kannushi and miko could go in, so it wasn't as though he could legally follow the guy. A couple of times Hikaru caught the door opening slightly and the priest peering out, to see if he was still there. It was absolutely stupid, and confusing, and so very _very_ ridiculous.

He was stubborn, but there was only so long he could wait. After about three hours, Hikaru packed his things and left the shrine, feeling quite thoroughly flummoxed.

* * *

When he got home, Hikaru greeted his mother and went immediately to his room, feeling all sorts of confused and thoughtful. Because it was kind of comforting, and also because he wanted someone to discuss this idiocy with, Hikaru commenced his Sunday Sai-time by opening the wardrobe, unveiling the kamidana, and lighting the candles and incense. Once the wonderful, familiar, heartbreaking scent of wisteria was wafting pleasantly throughout the room, he placed the fan and got down to business.

"Okay, Sai." He said. "The weirdest thing just happened." The impulse was there to immediately begin narrating the entire encounter, as well as the one on Thursday as Sai hadn't heard that yet. But there were too many thoughts running through his head, so Hikaru sat silently for a few minutes to let it all process before speaking again. "So, that priest," he mumbled, pensively. "He's…probably not being a judgemental dick. If it was that, he wouldn't have tried to throw a load of ofuda at me. He actually seemed _scared_ , Sai. I mean, what the hell?"

Hikaru brought up his hands and rubbed at his temples. It was _weird_ , there was no mistaking it. The kannushi had started off just being really suspicious and displeased at his presence. By the third encounter, he'd seemed more worried, and had gone to hide for at least an hour. By the fourth, he was actually frightened, and had _thrown ofuda at Hikaru._ Hell, he'd stuck them all around the shrine, and even _worn_ one around his neck. He had done this with hand-made ofuda asking not for the standard general protection, but for protection against _malevolent spirits._

It was _outrageously_ weird, and yes, _suspicious._

Many people had, in the past, looked at Hikaru and immediately dismissed him as showy, a delinquent, beneath their notice, or even a troublemaker at first glance. This was not that. This was something else. Hikaru liked to think that nothing about him screamed 'demon!' or maybe 'evil spirit here!', and certainly none of the other priests or miko had behaved in even slightly the same way.

That made this kannushi suspicious…and not, actually, in a bad way.

It was…sort of hopeful.

"He thinks I'm an evil spirit. Or a demon. Or maybe _possessed_ by an evil spirit or demon." Hikaru said slowly, ponderously. He quashed down the parts of him which were getting far too excited far too quickly, and exhaled. "I'm pretty sure I don't look like a demon or an evil spirit, and it's not like I was behaving so bad that he, I dunno, concluded that I'm pure evil. I was just _studying._ " To be fair, no one had guessed that Hikaru had been possessed even when he _had_ been, they'd just thought he was weird. But _still._ He took a deep breath, and uttered the natural conclusion: "so…maybe, I'm on to something here." He said, the words all rushing out of him.

It was hard to hold back that surge of hope and excitement and exultation. He had to have visited over a hundred shrines, and the kannushi hadn't known anything and hadn't shown any sign of getting weird vibes from him at all. But this guy? This guy had been suspicious of him _on sight._

What if this guy _knew something about spirits?_ Something _worthwhile?_

Okay, so he thought Hikaru was a demon. So what? If he could detect some sort of paranormal residue hanging around him that was more than enough of a place to start! It was certainly _way_ more than he'd got from anything else he'd done so far.

Hikaru was officially excited. Excited, and full of so much energy that he squirmed in place. "Okay, Sai, I'm really trying not to get my hopes up here." He told the fan. "But you have to admit, this sounds…well, hopeful."

Frustratingly, he probably wouldn't have a chance to follow up until next Thursday. The beginnings of each week were always way too crammed with games and practice, and on Monday afternoons there were the Serizawa study sessions. Not to mention the Touya study sessions on Tuesdays, or the routine official matches that were scheduled for most lower-dans on Wednesdays. He knew that this would absolutely _eat_ at him for the whole time, he _knew it_.

Hikaru sat and stewed in excited frustration for a good five minutes instead of talking or doing anything productive. Finally, though, he huffed. "Okay, that's enough of that. Here, Sai, I played an interesting match of NetGo against Yashiro on Tuesday…"

He set out the stones, and replayed the match.

* * *

On Monday, the excitement and the hope were still dominant in the maelstrom of mad emotion that Hikaru was experiencing. He positively _bounced_ with energy that alternated between cheerful and nervous, and it had an excellent effect on his games. Hikaru played quickly and impulsively, confusing the hell out of Waya with his weird plays and annoying Touya by fidgeting too much during their game, but ultimately putting forth a great few games.

On Tuesday, impatience truly began to set in, and Hikaru poured all of his irritation and fretting into demolishing his opponents as though they had personally affronted him. They sort of had, being so inconsiderate as to want games with him when he wanted to be investigating a potential lead. He was more ruthless with his students than usual, and got into a bitching contest with Akari when she blamed his poor mood on his 'period', which she knew full well wasn't something he was physically capable of.

On Wednesday, Hikaru was _nervous._ He was distracted and fidgety and couldn't stop worrying. The kannushi had been seriously freaked out. What if he brought other priests? What if he brought friends and family? What if he brought _exorcists?_ It wasn't like they'd be able to exorcise Hikaru anyway, but the fear was there. Worse, what if the kannushi was so freaked out by him that he skipped town, or transferred to some other shrine? _What if he got a restraining order?_

A consequence of channelling all of the pain, loss, anguish and grief of Sai's absence into getting Sai back meant that when he felt that this goal was threatened, it _messed him up._ In the end Hikaru allowed himself to sink slightly into depression and apathy just to make his head _shut up_ a bit. His play vacillated between terrible and awful, and it was truly unfortunate that he had an official match that day because he lost to basically everyone. He lost to Waya, he lost to Isumi, and he sure as hell lost to Touya, who seemed perfectly outraged at his inability to focus and give him a good game. And, for that matter, he lost to the sandan he had his match against, too. When he finally got home in the evening he locked himself in his room and sequestered himself in front of the Sai-shrine, desperately needing the bittersweet familiarity of the closest thing he had to Sai's presence.

He sat for over an hour before the kamidana, lighting new sticks of incense as they burned out rather than leaving it at just the one. He sat there breathing in the scent and did his best to _relax_ , and not panic, and not come up with absurd worries, and he was actually almost starting to succeed when _Akari came over._

When he heard her voice downstairs, greeting his mother, Hikaru did not feel very charitable towards it at all. He stared vengefully at the wardrobe-shrine, feeling profoundly slighted by the sound of footsteps on the stairs.

When she knocked, he refused to answer until she started getting belligerent and noisy, whereupon he snuffed out all of the burning things, leaving a stick of incense half-expended, and concealed his wardrobe-shrine in the traditional manner. Then he unlocked and opened the door, just as Akari was giving it a good shove, meaning that she fell into the bedroom with basically no grace at all.

" _Finally,_ " She snapped, once she had herself upright. "I was starting to think you were just going to ignore me until I gave up!"

Hikaru stared at her. "I let you in, didn't I?" He responded, hand reaching into his pocket. It found nothing. He did a double-take, checking the other pocket as well, but nope. He'd left the fan on the kamidana. Damn. His fingers were pretty much twitching for it.

"After leaving me waiting there for ages, perhaps." Akari sniffed. Then she paused, looking suddenly curious. "Hikaru, your room is basically _full of smoke._ I should probably close the door so you don't set off the fire alarm." Without waiting for a response, she did precisely that, sniffing the air as she did so.

"It's just incense." He muttered, not feeling very sociable at all. He was _worried,_ damn it, and because she'd caught him in the middle of some unscheduled Sai-time he was feeling far more emotional than he tended to prefer when other people were around. And he didn't even have the fan to mess with.

"I know you've been mad on the stuff since you came back from Kyoto, but I've never caught you burning it before." Akari said, glancing around. "Where's the burner? I don't think I've seen it before."

"I put it away," He explained, but suddenly she wasn't listening. She was looking at the thin line of smoke wafting out from the wardrobe door. Before he could do anything, the door in question had been wrenched open.

"You're burning incense in your _wardrobe?_ " She asked incredulously, rifling about in search of the burner. "No wonder your clothes all smell of it!"

"Get out of my stuff, you witch!" Hikaru demanded, not pleased in the least because she was about to-

Akari found the kamidana. Akari stared. Hikaru resigned himself to his fate.

There were several moments of silence. Quite a lot of them, actually. It would be more accurate to say that there was a good minute of silence involved, which was an unusually large space of time when both Hikaru and Akari were occupying the same space.

Finally, the many moments of silence ended. "Hikaru," Akari said, disbelief colouring her tone. "Have you discovered _religion?_ "

…Somehow, Hikaru had never expected that she would make such an assumption. " _What?"_ He asked, flatly.

"Oh my god, you _have."_ Akari said, rapidly skydiving to her false conclusion. "It explains _everything._ All of those shrines – no, Hikaru, you will _not_ convince me that over a hundred shrines is because you like bothering kannushi – and the incense, and why you've been acting so _weird_ since you came back from Kyoto-"

"I have _not,_ " Hikaru protested, stung. He hadn't, had he? If he had been acting discernibly different, Akari would certainly be the first to notice, but…

"You have _found religion._ " Akari said, rapturously. "You are absolutely the _last person_ I would _ever_ expect to have _found religion._ This is crazy!" She looked thrilled.

"Oh my god I don't know you." Hikaru insisted, hoping desperately that she wouldn't be spreading this shit around, because he knew very well that he would not be able to convince her she was wrong at this stage of her certainty. "I don't know you, what are you even doing in my room, get out of here." He made a token, unsuccessful attempt to shove her out of his room.

She batted him away and inspected the kamidana more closely. "You're getting all into Shinto stuff, then? If there's a kamidana?" She asked, as though actually expecting an answer. "You _have_ a household shrine already, Hikaru, you could have used that, you know. This must have been horribly expensive. And then you wouldn't have to use a _fan_ for your shintai." She made to reach out and touch it. Hikaru objected immensely to this idea.

He plucked the fan away before she could reach it, folding it defensively against his wrist. "Don't disrespect my worship," he snarked at her, figuring that as long as this was what she'd decided on he might as well roll with it.

"A _fan,_ Hikaru?" She asked, sceptically.

"The fan is an artefact of great personal significance." He told her imperiously.

Akari peered at it as best she could when he was hiding it from view. "It's that fan you always carry around with you, isn't it?" She said, phrasing it like a question when in reality it was more like a statement. "You never would explain what that fan was about." She looked at him as if she expected him to spill all of his secrets on the spot.

"It's mine. My own. My precious." Hikaru informed her at a deadpan. They'd gone to see The Lord of the Rings movie as soon as it had been subbed for a Japanese audience, and the second one had been released and subbed the year before, so she recognised the reference immediately.

"You are a pain." Akari declared. "A huge pain. I'm convinced that putting up with you for all these years is a symptom of insanity, and a sign that I should probably seek counselling."

"I couldn't agree more." Hikaru supported, solemnly.

She rolled her eyes. "I know full well what you're like." His life-long best friend claimed. "You bought your own stuff and worship in secret because you're a cagey little moron who cares far too much about what other people think and know about you." In this, she was actually probably right, though naturally he would never admit anything of the sort. "But _I,_ for one, am very supportive of your faith, Hikaru." Akari announced, continuing self-importantly. "So I will not tell anyone." She smiled. "Probably."

He smiled back at her, just as insincerely. Now that she'd found out, Hikaru found that he actually didn't care so much. He'd hid the kamidana mostly because he'd thought that it would be interpreted as mourning, which would raise far too many questions. He'd somehow never realised that, given his shrine visiting and so on, religion might be the conclusion people would come to.

Most Japanese followed Shinto practices as a matter of course – it wasn't so much a religion as just something people _did._ There were naturally people who followed the traditions much more closely and seriously, primary among them the actual priests, and they could be considered religious…but _him,_ as one of those people? The people who actually worshipped, rather than just burning some incense on holidays or leaving offerings at public shrines? What a weird thought.

Hikaru didn't especially mind the idea of that getting out. In fact, it would probably be very funny. He was certain that Waya would dismiss it all as bullshit no matter what anyone else said, and insist that the shrine was just Hikaru taking his stupidity to all new heights. He suspected most of the people who knew him even slightly wouldn't have any idea of what to believe. Touya might even get affronted by the whole thing – Hikaru knew his family were very traditional, and might even be among the number of those who were on the religious side of the Shinto spectrum.

"I am _so_ thankful for your kind support. I don't know what I would do without you." Hikaru deadpanned, and they exchanged some very false pleasantries and kind words before he finally managed to evict her from his room on grounds that she was interrupting his worship.

Once he'd re-locked the room, he set to re-lighting the incense and candles as well, listening to Akari cheerfully explain to his mother that he was being a brat today so she was leaving him be. He rolled his eyes, and flipped his middle finger at her through the floor, before sitting down with the shrine and ignoring everything.

Annoyingly, he actually felt far better now. Even when Akari was being a supreme pain in the backside, she somehow managed to cheer him up. That was the hazard of growing up with someone, he supposed. Especially someone who grew up to be as sly and tricky as Akari had.

"Did you hear all that, Sai?" Hikaru asked, settling to breathe in the incense. "She thinks I'm _religious_ now." He paused, a thought occurring to him. "Then again, maybe I am." He mused. "After all, here I am talking to a kamidana with no idea whether or not you, Sai, are actually listening. And I suppose you could be a minor kami. Like an ancestor spirit. Or the kami of Go."

Hikaru grinned, suddenly. He knew precisely what he'd be saying if this thing thing ever got out and people started asking.

* * *

The next day, Hikaru had returned to a slightly effervescent blend of excitement and nervous anticipation. He gathered enough mental focus to absolutely dominate a match with Waya, leaving the boy looking somewhat shell-shocked as he watched his terrible loss unfold. It was very satisfying.

Afterwards, Hikaru made his way with all due haste back to his residential area and then power-walked all the way to the local shrine.

Once the torii was in sight, he slowed and snuck his way forwards. In the shadow of a nearby tree, Hikaru observed the kannushi. He was raking leaves from the shrine's grass, looking about him periodically. He looked nervous and slightly unkempt, with such dark circles beneath his eyes that Hikaru could see them from over ten metres away. He observed this with incredulity, and maybe a little guilt. Had he freaked the guy out that badly?

Cautiously, Hikaru made his way into plain view and entered through the torii. As the priest was maintaining a keen eye for his surroundings, he noticed at once, standing up straight with fright. He actually _shrieked_ a little, and scrambled backwards as Hikaru approached, rummaging in his clothing.

Holy shit, he really _had_ spooked this poor bastard. "Hey," Hikaru attempted, approaching more quickly. He didn't want the guy to just run and hide again. "I don't know exactly what you're thinking, but you're probably wrong."

The following moment saw a _crucifix_ being brandished in front of him. Hikaru stared at it, no longer even all that shocked, and looked at the trembling priest. "Stay back, foul spirit!" The kannushi cried, pale and wide-eyed.

"Okay, this is just dumb." Hikaru said. "I am _not_ a spirit. I'm pretty sure I'd have noticed."

"I will not listen to your lies!" The man declared, and ran for it.

Hikaru stared dumbly for just a second too long. By the time he started pursuing, the guy was already well on his way to the shrine, and slammed the door in his face just as he caught up. "Dammit." Hikaru muttered, and then raised his voice. "Man, you're being a total wuss!" He called. "Even if I _was_ a spirit, this would be a totally crap way of dealing with it! You're just hiding!"

There was a pause. Hikaru heard rustling behind the door.

"I never knew Shinto priests were so cowardly!" He said loudly.

The rustling came again, more rapidly. "If I knew an onmyouji powerful enough, demon, I would have had you exorcised already!" The kannushi shouted angrily, voice muffled through the door.

Hikaru stopped at that response, perplexed. "What, do you think I'm a _major_ evil spirit, or something?" He asked, half worried and half amused. "Some sort of unholy demonic terror?"

There was no response for around ten seconds. Then: "The ofuda did nothing! Ofuda, with Inari-sama's holy protection upon them! Even the crucifix was worthless!"

"And that means I'm some sort of arch-demon, then?" He questioned.

" _Yes!_ " The priest said, emphatically.

"One too powerful for any of the exorcists or monks you know?"

" _Yes!"_ He repeated. Then: "I will not bring good men here for you to slaughter!"

Hikaru exhaled, slowly, and shook his head. He could hardly believe that this shit was happening. "If I'm such a _powerful_ demon, then why am I just standing here instead of breaking through the door?" He asked, quite reasonably.

Another pause. When the kannushi replied, he wasn't shouting anymore, but spoke firmly enough that he was clearly audible. "This is the heart of the shrine," he said. "One of Inari-sama's many hearts. Even evil such as you cannot penetrate into such a holy place."

He stared. _That_ was why the guy had run and hid in the shrine? "Oh, that is so stupid." He insulted. "I'm not repelled by the shrine, or some dumb crap like that! I just haven't tried to get in because it's _illegal!_ "

The pause this time was quite long. It stretched for about twenty seconds, and Hikaru was starting to get impatient when the voice came again, venturing "illegal?"

" _Yes."_ Hikaru said, now very exasperated. "It's not a public building and trespassing is illegal. I know what I look like, but I'm _not_ a delinquent." _Much. Anymore._ He added internally.

There was another long silence. "That is exactly something a demon would say." The kannushi said, but he sounded less certain.

"What do you want me to do to prove I'm not some evil spirit?" Hikaru demanded. "I have a mum. I have a dad, even if I hardly ever see him. I have friends and I even have a _job._ I live in a house and sleep in a bed just like any other fifteen-year-old guy. I am _very definitely_ human."

"The tricks of demons are legendary." Said the kannushi, pensively. Hikaru was preparing to shout at him again when he said "I will unlock the door, and you will open it. If you can enter the shrine, then either you are not a demon, or you are powerful enough that the shrine cannot stop you and you are only playing with me. If you are repelled, I will know you for what you are."

" _Thank you,_ " Hikaru said, feeling rather incensed by the whole ordeal. "And, you know, you won't have me arrested for trespassing when I get in?"

There was a _click_ as a lock turned. "I will not, if indeed you are not a demon." The kannushi sounded almost amused now. "But to be clear: I am _not_ inviting you in."

"What, you think I'm a vampire now?" Hikaru asked, mockingly, and reached out to open the door.

"I am not about to discount any possibilities." The priest's voice was more distant. As Hikaru opened the door and looked inside, he saw why: the man had retreated to the heart of the shrine, and was watching him warily.

Rolling his eyes, Hikaru stepped easily over the threshold. As the priest's eyes widened, he took three more steps for good measure. "There." He said. "Satisfied now?"

He was stared at for a while longer. "I prefer to believe that you are human," said the kannushi. "Because the alternative is that you are a demon powerful enough to violate Inari's sacred space, and frankly I do not even want to consider that."

"Good." Hikaru nodded, tension starting to ease off. "Now, can we leave and talk outside? I don't want to attract divine retribution or something for trespassing."

"Wise." Came the reply, now hesitantly amused. "You leave, first."

He rolled his eyes, but complied, turning to exit the holy structure. Once he was out on the grass, he turned and watched expectantly, and surely enough, the kannushi emerged. He did not look especially comfortable while he did it, but he did proceed out of the building with far more dignity than he had entered. Apparently there were rituals to be observed when opening and closing the door under ordinary circumstances, because the priest bowed to the door before finally walking out to join him.

"Working under the assumption that you are a human," The kannushi said. "I realise that my actions have been bizarre, irrational, and unnecessarily extreme. For that, I apologise. However, if you _had_ been a demon, I would have been perfectly justified in my responses." _Sorry but not sorry,_ he seemed to say.

"Yeah, yeah, I get it." Hikaru said, shuffling in place. _Finally_ he could get to the point.

"Perhaps we should start again." He suggested. "I am Utagawashi Kichirou, kannushi for this shrine to Inari-sama."

"Shindou Hikaru." He introduced himself, taking a deep breath. "Now that that's over with…why in hell did you think I was a demon?!"

* * *

 **Chapter notes:** Cheers to everyone who has shown up and provided attention since last update. Chapter 20 isn't out yet, but I've made some solid progress on it. All other 19 chapters remain available on my other writing locations.

Some relatively significant edits were made for this version versus tumblr version, mainly correcting things in canon I'd overlooked, like Hikaru's grandma not being dead, and Hikaru and Touya attending Serizawa study sessions on Mondays. Also people of Hikaru's grade apparently have their matches on Wednesdays according to canon, so I moved it there, and changed the game to a loss. There were also the standard small stylistic edits.

 **Character/language notes:** The OC introduced here is Utagawashi Kichirou , 疑吉郎 , Suspicion, fortunate, son. 'Utagawashi' is a potential reading of that first kanji, but in all likelihood you would probably need が (ga), わ (wa), し(shi), and い (i) for it to be actually read 'Utagawashi'. Abbreviated to that one kanji for the purposes of it looking like a name.

Utagawashi seems to be well-received by my past readers, so hopefully he'll go over well enough here too.


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